November 23, 2012

NYT discovers Google Gaydar

Awhile back, I pointed out in Taki's that you can use Google's auto-completion prompts to quantify which celebrities the public suspects might be gay. Now, the NYT has a similar article:
Don’t Ask? Internet Still Tells 
By QUENTIN HARDY and MATT RICHTEL

Of course, being a respectable publication, the NYT has to fit this phenomenon into the approved "Who? Whom?" political framework:
So what might explain this apparent fascination with people’s sexual orientation? 
Ritch Savin-Williams, a professor at Cornell University who studies gay issues, said that the frequency of such inquiries is a symptom of the politicized nature of homosexuality. For instance, he said that people who are gay or who favor gay rights [i.e., Good People] might be looking for allies and like-minded people, while people who oppose such rights [i.e., Bad People] might be looking to demonize someone, whether a politician, athlete or actor.

There is also a third, unmentioned group: those who who like to understand how the world works. No doubt these weirdos comprise only a tiny minority, but that's one minority that is of no interest to the NYT, at least when it comes to Gay Issues.

By the way, I've since discovered that my Google Gaydar system works superbly well in another field of entertainment for identifying the performers' strategy for attracting a particular target audience. I'll have to write it up one of these days.

13 comments:

Anonymous said...

"quantifying the audience demographic's strategy"

???
I'm sorry, you lost me there. What does that mean?

Son of Brock Landers said...

Does the search start with a 'j'?

The New York Times said...

"I'll have to write it up one of these days."

Please do. We need something to write about other than the newest black gay hipster coffee bar in Brooklyn.

Reg Cæsar said...

Ritch Savin-Williams, a professor at Cornell University who studies gay issues...

"I'm a Ritch, I'm a Ritch,
and the Ritch is back,
stone-cold sober as a matter of fact."

I bet Ritch and the other Cornellian gays are quite in demand at Provincetown, Key West, Mykonos and other hot spots, what with their daily traverse of the steepest campus in America, if not the world.

Anyone know the average weight difference between Cornell and the other Ivies? I bet at Big Red (!) they're at least 20 lb. lighter.

Anonymous said...

Yes, there is a huge buzz on the internet going back several years about whether the Elmo character in sesame Street is gay, leading some to wonder whether Kevin Clash was gay:

http://wiki.answers.com/Q/Is_Kevin_Clash_gay

Steve has actually come up with a fairly useful tool for tort lawyers trolling for clients. Just use Google to find quasi celebrities suspected of being closeted gays, then start cold calling people who may have been in a position to be victimized. A variation on this approach: substitute pedophile, rapist, violent, thief, liar, etc, for gay.

Marlowe said...

But is Mr. Sailer hyperthyroid or hyp-O-thyroid?

Anonymous said...

How about the majority: regular generally apolitical people who are just plain interested in who is or is not gay? They can't come out (lol) and say that regular people might be interested in who is or isn't gay because that would be admitting that being gay is a human difference that matters.

Anonymous said...

Azerbaijan discovered Gaydar Aliev!

TGGP said...

"Nick In’t Ven, senior program manager at Microsoft’s Bing search engine"

What kind of name is that?

Anonymous said...

The problem of our society is not that gays are demonized but that they are lionized, sanctified, elevated, spiritualized, angel-ized, and deified.

Queers want everyone to love them, which is unrealistic, to say the least. It's not enough to stop hating them, or to simply respect them as human beings. How often do you see gays and lesbians forming schools of their own, or homeschooling, the way that many Christians do? If bullying is the main issue, then a response such as that would be expected. It really sounds like queers want to stay in the public schools, but use force make everyone else love them, and want to be with them, and want to bask in their magic glow.

Anonymous said...

"How can gays be demonized when they are favored by Jewish elites, the most powerful people in America? "

Do you mean the JERCs who took over from the WASPs?

Mike B. said...

I prefer using google for its "Hot Big Breasted Blonde"-dar instead.

Frank said...

What's a JERC? J is obvious...E is either Eastern or Educated...R could be Rich...C, I have no Clue.