Paul Krugman writes in a blog post that he is bummed out because NY Times readers search nine keywords more often than they search him, but he’s wrong if he thinks he’s not loved. People just don’t know what they like, or want. They don’t even know what they think. Take the polls that show people are unhappy about the deficit, only they’re not, and want higher taxes unless that means them, or that they think Obama is not a citizen, even when they think he was born in Hawaii. Whatever, I still want to do my part to bolster Krugman’s self-esteem by explaining why we might type any of the following search terms onto our iPhones while lying on our sides in bed trying to get the window to stop flipping back and forth from vertical to horizontal.
Japan: Most Americans are truly saddened by the unending trauma the Japanese have and continue to suffer. But some of America’s interest in Japan can be explained by an element of schadenfreude, as many Americans have never truly forgiven them for WWII. Those are the 20% who know Japan had anything to do with WWII. The rest of us just really resent Japan for the cars.
Sugar: It’s so we can scrutinize and compare our diets to see if we’re really going to die of cancer. Let’s see. Breakfast: Pumpkin latte with whipped cream, blueberry muffin the size of a tetherball, orange juice. Snack: box of Malted Milk balls from that movie we hated. Lunch: Caesar salad with chicken (very healthy! Yay!), Big Gulp Coke… and so on.
April 19, 2011: Not sure, Paul. Maybe it’s like how some people Google their own names every day, just to see how things stand.
Obama: Just want to keep tabs on the fucker.
China: Ditto.
Education: We want to know what that Tiger Mother is going to do to her younger daughter/dog/husband now that her older daughter got into Harvard and Yale. And then we're going to do it ourselves.
Libya: Lots of us search Libya, but then can’t stand to read about this thing that’s increasingly, depressingly, looking like an endless Non-War, so we check out Greg Mortensen or April 19, but then we feel we really should know, so we search Libya again, but then we can’t stand it… and so on.
Greg Mortenson: I don’t know about anyone else but I keep reading about him because I know it’s unethical, and not-done, but I don’t actually understand how any true thing can be as interesting as a true thing told well, which sometimes requires a little narrative Spanxx.
Modern Love: Fifty percent of New York Times readers check this all the time, to see if our own pathetic lives are as pathetic as these, and if the pathetic-ness would make as good an essay as the ones the New York Times seems to like, for some reason.
Paul Krugman: We have to conduct these searches because we quote you incessantly (but only after we assess our narrative viability quotient via Modern Love). And then we hope to read that you are announcing a run for President, with Anthony Weiner as your running-mate. Or that Timothy Geithner is going on a very very long vacation and you’re taking over.
