Don't Take Me Seriously - Book - Page 276
I liked writing for newspapers, where the eyes
of every reader had to at least pass over my
ravings on the way to the horoscopes. These
days, in the digital world, members of an
erstwhile captive audience can avoid every hint
of my literary zirconia effortlessly because of
my lack of efficient word optimization. More
directly, they can employ the galactic black
hole of the “minus” search.
For example, if you type “anything” in the
Google search bar, you get about 570,000,000
results. Of course, your number of results will vary, depending on the time of day,
weather, your device, previous searches – and whether the algorithm is hung over. But
let’s don’t get lost in the deets, we’re ballparking here.
To illustrate the ease of contemporary exclusion, just search for “anything -Jim Walker”
(minus me) and you get only about 12,400,000 results. That’s nearly a 98 percent
reduction, people, and a significant harshing of my potential online income! (Although I
am rather gratified by my own importance. Who knew?)
If you want to punish me further, you can search “anything -Jim
Walker -writer -humor -morals -intelligence -money -success soul -sentient being” and it’s way down to about 1,580,000
results, which is another dramatic flogging, but getting ever-closer
to the truth as you continue to deduct redeeming qualities.
However (and here I get to the point), this “minus” search, this
very holocaust of digital prejudice, can be turned to ultimate good. You see, it offers a
portal to a wondrous new world, my friends – which is to say, the OLD world.
And I call it My Google Time Machine.
Just as the current edition of relevant can weed me out with a simple minus sign, I can
return the favor. And every layer of so-called progress or supposed enlightenment I strip
off moves the timeline of the results backward, tightens my belly and puts color back into
another hair or three on my head.
For instance:
