In life it’s difficult not to take things personally. After all, the world is largely the way it is because of how we process it, right? When it comes to politics, particularly in the South African context, we tend to take things twice as personally. Borrowing some inspiration from a post on Bleeding Cool, I decided to investigate what our friends at Google make of SA politics.
Is Nelson Mandela a Satanist? Is Helen Zille married? Is Agang dead?
Obviously whatever Google is spitting up when you do a search is based on what people most often search for using these same terms. Sometimes that just means we’re not doing a ton of searching in the right direction on these subjects, but other times it’s like we’re searching for all the wrong things. My theory on that is because South Africans approach politics like I did exams during varsity: goofing off for as long as I could, then complaining when it’s too late to do anything productive about my situation.
Is Nelson Mandela a Satanist? Is Jacob Zuma educated? Is Helen Zille married?
These are our prime concerns when it comes to politics, it seems. Or at least when it comes to Googling politics. What we see here reveals a lot about the conservative background of South Africans, and shines a light on the way most of us still interpret the world through existing societal norms and prejudices. Who cares if Helen Zille is married? Apparently enough people that Google thinks you want to know. Similarly, Jacob Zuma is viewed through the lens of the limits placed on his education.
While the important questions about corruption, socialism and communism are being asked, I think the relevance of the Illuminati trumps all as usual. Don’t you?
Madiba’s a Satanist, you guys.
Woops. Let’s try that again…
I’d like to know about “jobs in the democratic alliance” too. 15-million of them, I hope.
EFF gets you nothing so I gave their full name a spin instead.
The amount of people that South Africans seem to assume are dead amazes me.
More reasons they should’ve rethought that name, ne?
And hey, while we’re at it…
There’s that dreaded Illuminati connection again.
Gotta investigate if there’s a sister or not, hey?
Once. Nope. Yes. No comment.
