In a recent interview for the French website OWNI, I hinted at how our information-intensive environment changes the way romantic relationships are created – and dissolved. Finding your significant other, as well as breaking up with him/her, becomes a cognitive task, as well as an emotional one. Consider Google, and how it can be used to either collect information about someone you just met at a party, or to passively stalk your ex. Love nowadays – as Cyrano de Bergerac would put it – is “a rose-dot on the ‘i’ of ‘I google you'”.
Title: I google you
Artist: Amanda Palmer
Lyrics: Neil GaimanI google you
late at night when I don’t know what to do
I find photos
you’ve forgotten
you were in
put up by your friendsI google you
when the day is done and everything is through
I read your journal
that you kept
that month in France
I’ve watched you danceAnd I’m pleased your name is practically unique
it’s only you and
a would-be PhD in Chesapeake
who writes papers on
the structure of the sun
I’ve read each oneI know that I
should let you fade
but there’s that box
and there’s your name
somehow it never makes the pain
grow less or fade or disappear
I think that I should save my soul and
I should crawl back in my hole
But it’s too easy just to fold
and type your name again
I fearI google you
Whenever I’m alone and feeling blue
And each scrap of information
That I gather
says you’ve found somebody new
And it really shouldn’t matter
ought to blow up my computer
but instead…I google you