Rhetorical Device

Search Log Analysis as a Narrative Form

Search Log Analysis as a Narrative Form is an observation by Jack Rusher, published here Tuesday, August 15, 2006. It is part of Objet Trouvé.

Mining for narrative gold in AOL’s dung-heap.

Leaky Data Pipes

1. The best of which is probably the typology of search behavior at Slate Magazine, though it’s hard to beat the Something Awful coverage for unapologetic rubber-necking.

America Online recently made available a database containing the searches typed into their proprietary search engine over the course of three months by some 650,000 users. Each of the search records contains the exact search phrase used, an anonymous ID number representing the user who typed the phrase, the date and time at which they did so, and which website (if any) they visited as a result. The technophile media has been awash with articles on this topic1, mostly concerned with issues of user privacy.

One reason we are so fascinated by these tiny groups of words is that they represent the things others say to their computers when they believe no one is watching. These are the private thoughts of a random sampling of Americans, the report sent back from the lab after a session of cultural endoscopy.

2. The Star Trek fan who searched for pictures of female Klingons and a used Real Doll, for instance.

The gross facts, predictable and quickly collected, are that AOL users like pornography, music and food, and prefer everything to be delivered immediately, without cost. Once these initial findings were in hand, the collective effort shifted to the extraction of character studies. The entire catalog of human misfortune is present within the data-set, and much merriment has been had at the expense of various anonymous searchers2. However, the poignant, often literary, character of the data has gone largely unmentioned.

What can these searches tell us about enduring human nature? Many things, as it turns out.

America Online Gothic

Jacques Callot’s depiction of a jousting demon.

We have, for instance, a latter-day Faulknerian (ID #2281868) who first inquired as to “how to destroy demons that live in apt above,” wondered “is hip hop and rap music a form of satanism,” moved closer to his target with “are niggers satan or demons or gremlins,” and, finally, asked the age-old question “do niggers have x-ray vision?”

3. A “creampie,” for those of you who haven’t kept up with porn slang, is an internal money-shot followed by a close-up of semen oozing from the involved orifice.

One user (ID #6120607) asked, “how to become a ordained pastor,” shortened his question to “become ordained,” then revealed his principle interest: “anal creampies3.” Another (ID #98280) performed the following searches over the course of two consecutive days:

4. Often a far-fetched solution involving the supernatural, cartoonish violence, or a pyramid scheme.

This sort of clustered desperation is quite common, as is the process by which an accidental confession transforms into the search for a potential solution4.

Rendering Unto Caesar

God questions Adam and Eve.

5. I mean this term quite seriously. Many users speak to the search engine using whole sentences — often declarative ones — that seem to indicate an intention to communicate directly with the internet itself.

6. It’s unclear what a holy text written several thousand years ago by nomadic herdsman would have to say on this topic, but 7897282 is quite determined to justify his position with the Bible.

One particularly fascinating user (ID #7897282) began a day of concentrated search-engine dialogue5 with a few questions concerning “what the bible says about female president6,” asked the awkwardly phrased but more general “what the bible says the role of women,” moved to the syntactically tortured declaration that “women also should not exercise authority over adult men the bible says in society at large,” simplified his line of inquiry to “female president in the bible,” returned to the declarative with “theres no such female president bible says,” and then moved on to ever greater directness with “i dont agree in female presidency,” “i will not vote neither one of them,” “i like hillary and condelesa but I won’t vote neither of them,” and, finally, “neither of them get my precious vote.”

The same user — having realized that he had a problem, but somewhat confused as to its nature — later entered this series of phrases:

The most touchingly pious searcher I’ve found (ID #528878) pleads with the search engine as follows:

It appears that, for some users, the all-seeing, all-knowing nature of the AOL internet search engine bestows upon it the halo of divinity.

Modern Primitives

Caribe Natives Feasting on Human Flesh.

One of the most attention-grabbing users (ID #6416389) presented some indication of an unusual palate, having sought:

7. Does this constitute probable cause? Should it?

The aforementioned cannibal is an impressive specimen, but there are even more frightening users available for study. One (ID #5342598) seems to have borrowed his personality from a Bret Easton Ellis character. His interest in the “unsolved murder of tara marowski” goes from the macabre (“tara marowski found dead in car”) to the forensic (“unsolved mysteries tara,” “old cold cases in san jose california”) to the curious (“edward beaton questioned about the murder,” “edward beaton of campbell”) to the deeply alarming (“psychological test given to prisoners,” “test to see if you are a serial killer”) within an hour7.

Human Tragedy

Book cover: The Tragedy of Tolstoy.

Character studies aside, the data, once sorted chronologically, provides solid narrative content. One Texan housewife (ID #711391) draws a classical plot arc in the following steps:

A suggestive woodcut.

She appeared, at this point in the narrative, to have accepted that her problems, whatever they may have been, could be solved by extra-marital sex. She returns to AOL a few days later, at which point we find out exactly how well her plan worked:

If she had appended “train tracks” or “cyanide” we’d have had the Cliff Notes to a modern day Anna Karenina or Madame Bovary.

The most moving stories in the database are often among the shortest. One woman (ID #672368) proceeds over the course of a few weeks from “you’re pregnant he doesn’t want the baby” to “abortion clinics charlotte nc,” to, finally, “can christians be forgiven for abortion.”

The internet’s million monkeys at a million typewriters have delivered an alternate form of Hemingway’s famous six-word short story, “for sale: baby shoes, never worn.”