MILLENNIAL DIARY
EVERYONE knows that to truly understand a person, we must know their Google search history. Google is where we spill our most private and truthful thoughts and questions; it probably knows us better than we know ourselves. Last week, Google released Ireland’s top searches, and for better or worse, the results are probably the most accurate snapshot of Ireland in 2017 that we could ask for.
It is comforting to know that, with all the information in the world now at our fingertips, our main preoccupation, like our fathers and their fathers before them, is the weather. The top trending search in Ireland this year was ‘Hurricane Ophelia’, with ‘Hurricane Irma’ coming in at number six. Our second most-searched ‘what is’ question was ‘What is a hurricane?’ as the weather forecasts made the entire country wish we’d paid more attention in geography.
The data also revealed, that while we’re all publicly whingeing about Trump saturation in our newspapers and on our timelines, we’re actually all mad googling him. His name was the second mostsearched term in Ireland; it just about sums up our grim fascination with the man and the can’t-look-away car crash that is his presidency. For such a simple-minded man, Trump has proved quite the enigma as we spent the year trying to figure out who he is and what he’s at.
Number four on the most-googled in Ireland list was, perhaps surprisingly, 13 Reasons Why, the Netflix show which started a furore about its depiction of teen suicide which flew in the face of media guidelines. While some believed it should be required watching for teenagers to absorb important lessons about bullying, consent and drinking, multiple mental health professionals and national suicide prevention agencies worldwide warned that its irresponsible depiction of suicide could be harmful to vulnerable teens. The Press Ombudsman here went so far as to send out a briefing prepared by the National Suicide Research Foundation for Irish newspapers reporting on the show.
The fact that it was googled so much perhaps tells us more about our growing concern with mental health here in Ireland, and particularly with the mental health of our young people. We’ve had too many tragic stories reported this year for the issue to be swept under the carpet; suicide awareness campaigns are now commonplace. I imagine parents across the country turned to Google to figure out whether they should be allowing their child to watch 13 Reasons Why, a sign of our newfound awareness of the issues.
Parents of young children will also recognise ‘fidget spinner’ which made it into the top 10, and ‘how to make slime’, which was the top ‘how to’ question googled in Ireland. The latter may mystify the rest of you, but 2017 has seen a booming cottage industry in ‘slime’ pop up, mostly run by 11-year-old girls. They make multicoloured glittery slime with glue and laundry detergent, create videos of their fingers poking, stretching and kneading it for Instagram, and then sell it to other 11-year-old girls. Slime videos are not just beloved of pre-teens, typical comments on them from adults include, “Why is this so relaxing?”, “I can’t stop watching”, “This makes me feel so weird”, and “This is my life now”.
The strange audiovisual experience of watching slime videos is an example of a physical sensation called autonomous sensory meridian response, or ASMR, which has become almost a cult online. ASMR is characterised by a relaxing, pleasurable tingling in the head, neck and spine that is triggered by things like the sound of crinkling paper, scratching or tapping, a soft whispering voice or the repetitive handling of an object — like slime. So it turns out the science behind the mostsearched ‘How to’ in Ireland is pretty bulletproof — and perhaps a sign of the entire country’s need to chillax.
Elsewhere in the ‘how tos’, a load of us are apparently wondering how to solve the Rubik’s Cube — there is something pretty delightful about trying to figure out the retro pre-internet 1980s classic using the most up-to-date technology. Perhaps we haven’t entirely moved our play online.
‘How to lose weight’ was number three — the answer was presumably ‘stop eating spaghetti bolognese, pavlova and banoffee pie recipes’, all of which featured in the top most-searched recipes in Ireland. In an age of clean eating, where we apparently shrink from any suggestion of carbs or sugar, it was revealing that whatever we post on our Instagrams, we’re probably more likely to fall back on old comforting favourites for dinner, such as chilli con carne or beef stroganoff.
We learnt last week that the dreaded ‘avocado hand’ has come to Ireland, after a patient presented to Beaumont Hospital in Dublin with a knife still impaled through the fruit and her left ring finger. Avocados, it seems, are cruel mistresses, with the Irish Medical Journal publishing details of a similar case and Irish doctors warning that: “The public needs to be educated on the potential dangers of preparing avocados.” According to Google, it seems that on our small island we really are clueless when it comes to the fruit; the fourth mostgoogled recipe here was guacamole. While we may ‘like’ elaborate avocadobased recipes on Instagram, we actually don’t know how to make the most basic and obvious avo dish of them all. Which doesn’t even involve any actual cooking. Google also revealed that we don’t even know how to open that other ubiquitous trendy superfood, the coconut, with that ‘How to’ question coming in at number seven. We’re all talk.
The Irish mammies out there will be relieved to know that ‘fish pie’ and ‘scones’ were also in the top 10 most-searched-for recipes, but they will no doubt want to know why we didn’t just pick up the phone and ask for their version of the recipe. Shur isn’t that much better than what you’d get on the line? Hold on there ’til I find the index card with it and I’ll read it out. God, it’s covered in I don’t know what, I’ll just tell you myself, don’t I make them every week? So it’s a few handfuls of flour and a fair bit of butter, you know yourself... Are you still there?
I suppose there is something to be said for the comforting, clear reliability of Google — 2017’s Ireland seems to be one that hasn’t completely lost the run of itself, despite our worst fears. We’re anxious to know if the weather and bus strikes will wreck our commutes, how to make spag bol, and where we can watch the big matches. And you need not completely despair of us 20-somethings, ‘How to bleed radiators’ was a top search, presumably as millennials all over Ireland put down their coconuts and Rubik’s Cubes and attempted to adult. Ireland’s intellectual curiosity remains alive and well, with ‘What is the antikythera mechanism?’ our top ‘what is’ search. I don’t know either, I’ll have to Google it.
‘We learnt that the dreaded “avocado hand” has come to Ireland’