Web searches reveal national obsessions

SOUTH Africans have an obsession with cows, but it is not as bad as Brazilians, who have a thing for prostitutes, or the vain Koreans, seeking better noses.

These are the weird obsessions of nations around the world according to Google searches.

Cost-estimating website fixr.com used a Google auto-complete formula to show how countries are perceived around the world.

For South Africans it is the price of a cow. Google says it averages between R6 500 and R8 000.

Perhaps this has something to do with lobola, which went cyber recently with the launch of the Lobola Calculator.

In Brazil, the Google autocomplete comes back as prostitute – shared with Ukraine, Hong Kong and Latvia.

Pricing a prostitute in Brazil is tricky even with Google. But in Rio Janeiro, budget for $20 (R240).

Then it gets even weirder: most searches associated with South American countries are for the price of beer.

The search in Russia is for the price of a joy ride in a Mig fighter jet. In Canada it is the cost of a passport. In Mauritania, it is the price of a slave.

New Zealand and Australia may be close geographically, but in the searches they are universes apart.

New Zealanders are interested in vasectomies, while Australians are looking for the cost of in-vitro fertilisation.

In Iran, it is kidneys, and in South Korea rhinoplasty. For Italians, the associated search is for the price of mooring a boat.

Wits anthropologist Robert Thornton believes these results should be taken with a pinch of salt.

“It doesn’t make sense. Google has complex algorithms that take into account your search history.

“In South Africa, it would make sense for someone doing a search for the price of a kudu.

“If you look at Canadians, they don’t even leave Canada,” he said.