Sunday, August 21, 2016

Angelina Jolie, Caster Semenya, Brazil v. Germany, NASCAR, and Jack Kerouac



Every once in a while it is fun to Angelina Jolie with Google search trends data, sort of a Caster Semenya approach to the Brazil v. Germany rivalry over which NASCAR racer to root for. Notice how I worked the terms from the post title into that sentence? It probably won't fool the Google bots, but let's see how many pageviews this post gets compared to a typical day when I don't try to cheat the system.

As long as you landed here, first of all I extend my apologies if you're not a Jack Kerouac fan and was fooled by my use of top trending Google search terms. If you're a regular reader, here's some content for your trouble (and maybe it will turn the former into the latter). By the way, be warned: this is inane content at best....

Let's play "What does that have to do with Jack Kerouac?"

Angelina Jolie: It seems like she is trending because of either a recent death hoax or stories about her divorcing long-time husband Brad Pitt. It was no hoax that Kerouac died October 21, 1969. Here is a link to his obit in the New York Times: https://www.nytimes.com/books/97/09/07/home/kerouac-obit.html. And speaking of divorces, Jack was no stranger to that ordeal, having divorced first wife Edie Parker and second wife Joan Haverty  before marrying third wife Stella Sampas.

Caster Semenya: I assume she is trending for winning gold in the Rio Olympics 800 meter race amid controversy over her being "hyperandrogenous." Kerouac was a sports fan, especially baseball, and so he might have been generally interested in the Olympics. He certainly might have found the controversy over Semenya's possible hyperandrogenous condition an interesting one since pushing and blurring societally-constructed sexual mores were staples of the Beat Generation.

Brazil v. Germany: This is trending for being the gold medal match in women's beach volleyball. Like Semenya, Kerouac may have had an interest in this as a sports fan. I'll avoid the inappropriate and pruriently obvious connection one could make....

NASCAR: A weather delay at Bristol probably pushed this search term to a top ranking. The Kerouac connection? I'm not familiar with Jack being a NASCAR fan; indeed, races weren't televised much until the 70s, so he would have been mainly relegated to reading about NASCAR in the newspaper or attending a race in person (which I don't think he did). Were he alive today would he be a NASCAR fan? He might have a passing interest, but my guess is no.

There you have it: tenuous connections between Jack Kerouac and top-trending Google search terms. After some time has passed I'll let you know if including such terms in this post seems to have influenced pageview numbers.

Everything connects to Kerouac. Happy Sunday!


No comments: