Introduction
Last week, in keeping with my eight-year tradition, I examined Google’s Autocomplete suggestions—i.e., you start a query and have it suggest the rest—to learn about the American Zeitgeist in 2026. Part I focused on crime and punishment (i.e., what Americans fear getting in trouble for) and today I’ll cover everything else.
Who, what, where, when, why, how
Searching on “what is,” here are the top five suggestions Google offered for completing the query:
- What is my ip
- What is the 25th amendment
- What is easter monday
- What is vibe coding
- What is easter about
That first one, “what is my ip,” appeared eight years ago but not four years ago. It’s a pointless inquiry, as your IP address doesn’t actually say much about you or your device configuration ; these addresses are assigned dynamically and temporarily. Gamers and users of VPNs have reasons to want to know this, but they’ve surely bookmarked a website that can actually provide this info. So the popularity of this query is probably based on fear and ignorance: people watched some TikTok video about how “they” are going to “scam you through your IP address,” or they got a scam email saying, “we know your IP address is 192.168.128.230,” and these poor souls are just trying to determine if they’re really in danger. Could Americans really be that fearful and ignorant? Decide for yourself. Perhaps the rest of this post will help.
The second Autocomplete suggestion is surely the result of Americans reading about this or that lawmaker saying it’s time to invoke Section 4 of the 25th amendment to the U.S. Constitution, which allows removal of the president if he’s deemed “unable to discharge his duties.” The trigger for this saber-rattling was a post from the Donald on Truth Media on Easter Sunday, alluding to the military offensive against Iran: “Tuesday will be Power Plant Day, and Bridge Day, all wrapped up in one, in Iran. There will be nothing like it!!! Open the Fuckin’ Strait, you crazy bastards, or you’ll be living in Hell - JUST WATCH! Praise be to Allah.” Yes, he really said this. The president.
So … does this Autocomplete suggestion support the notion that Americans are fearful and ignorant? Well, I wouldn’t blame anybody for being fearful (either that Trump will be removed or that he’s unhinged, depending on your political bent), and I do not considerate it ignorant to not know what the 25th amendment is. I’d never heard of it either until sometime in the past six months when some other Trump outburst led to the same Quixotic call for removing him.
Moving on to the Easter thing, perhaps Americans are thinking more globally in general, because this didn’t come up four or eight years ago. Obviously Easter Monday is simply the day after Easter (today, in fact) and Americans are probably feeling a bit chapped we don’t get it as a holiday like so much of Europe does. Fair enough.
On to vibe coding: needless to say this query didn’t exist four years ago. Vibe coding is the method of programming where you tell AI what you want, essentially, without caring about how the resulting code works (which makes many in the industry nervous). A coder friend of mine likened it to pulling the handle on a slot machine. I think a lot more Americans are aware of vibe coding than would actually engage in it. I doubt it’d be as popular if it weren’t such an inspired, buzz-y term; if we called it “natural language-directed code generation with deferred comprehension” I doubt anybody would care. But since “vibe coding” sounds so cool, it’s making the rounds, and people don’t want to feel out of touch when it comes up. So it’s not fear or ignorance per se; it’s fear of ignorance.
The popularity of “What is Easter about” suggests to me that a growing number of Americans never went to church, or more specifically to a Christian one. It’s tempting to flag this as ignorance, but then who establishes how knowledgeable an American (especially an immigrant) should be about this (or any) religion?
Okay, let’s move on to “why.” The top five Autocomplete suggestions are:
- Why is the market down today
- Why berkeley
- Why california
- Why is easter called easter
- Why was jesus crucified
Those last two I’ll just lump under the same category as “What is Easter about,” but the other three didn’t show up in either of my last two investigations so let’s have a look. “Why is the market down today” would seem to be a perennial question, other than right now. I mean, why do you think, ya bozos? Could it be related to the world experiencing the largest oil crisis in history? If Americans can’t equate the price of gas to the stock market, I’m sorry—that’s just ignorant. But getting back to fearful, perhaps in this realm they’re not fearful enough.
The “why Berkeley” and “why California” suggestions are a real mystery to me, since the correct answer to both is “duh!” The Google Gemini AI overview responses are, respectively, “UC Berkeley is consistently ranked as the world’s top public research university, offering an elite, rigorous education, top-tier faculty, and massive research opportunities,” and “California is a global hub for innovation, entertainment, and economic power, boasting the largest state economy in the U.S. (4th largest globally).” (As for why these questions seem to have gotten so much search traction, I really have no idea, though my IP address—yes, we’ve come full circle on that—does tell Google my approximate whereabouts, and in fact I live in Albany which is right next door to Berkeley.)
Now we’ll look at “who.” Four years ago people were googling Julia Fox (whoever that is or was); Will Smith’s wife; Moon Knight; the Super Bowl teams; and Joe Rogan. Here are the top five today:
- Who won march madness
- Who is nancy guthrie
- Who is this
- Who is steve hilton
- Who is this meme
March Madness is obviously some sports tournament that ended less than a week ago so who cares—it probably says nothing about the zeitgeist. Nancy Guthrie is a missing person, the mother of some news personality, who is in the current news because there’s a ransom note now, and a sheriff with an undeclared loaded gun, and surely other bits of lurid intrigue, none of which I care about, because this person is a complete stranger. As she surely is to all these people googling her just because it’s exciting. Seriously, people, go read a crime novel. On to Steve Hilton: he is running for public office and that’s timely, blah blah blah.
Now, “who is this” is a fascinating suggestion. At first I took it to be a sign that somebody forgot he was only using a search engine, and assumed he was in conversation with an AI chatbot, and forgot which one it was. (I myself jump from bot to bot whenever they freeze my session due to lack of paid subscription.) But I went ahead and searched on it, and Google says it’s either the name of a song (it names four candidates) or “a phrase used to ask for the identity of a person, often used over the phone.” On this basis, I’m either going to finally become a rapper and write a song called “What Is My IP,” or I’m going to start asking people, especially over the phone, “Who is this?” Since random telemarketers are bound to volunteer this information anyway, I’ll stick to using it with people I know, whose voice I recognize, and who are in my contacts. Should shake things up a bit.
But “who is this meme” is a real mystery. Perhaps it’s just that “meme” is such a common noun, and the phrase “who is this” is just yearning for a predicate, so Google took a wild guess. Who knows? Who is this knows?
Let’s move on to “where.” The first carryover from previous years is, predictably enough, “where’s my refund” which suggests I shouldn’t do this report so close to Tax Day. That query came in at #2. The most popular is “where is artemis 2 now,” pertaining to the spacecraft that is heading for the moon (and once again, the popularity of this query says basically nothing about the zeitgeist). Next was “where is the super bowl 2026” which came up last time as well, and I just absolutely cannot fathom the popularity of this query because the Super Bowl happened already, all the way back in February, and if even I know that, despite being totally uninterested, how can so many people not? Next was “where to watch heated rivalry,” another broadcast sporting event; that this suggestion came under “where” is a random artifact of video websites being thought of as places. Ditto “where to watch uconn vs Michigan.” So much for where.
The next query ought to be more interesting: how. What are Americans trying to learn? The only carryover from previous surveys was “how to screenshot on mac,” which at first blush begs the question: haven’t people figured this out by now? But actually this makes sense: it’s because Gen-Z, having been weaned on smartphones, not laptops, is exploring this for the first time, and/or the Mac users have forgotten since they’re mostly phone-addicted as well, and/or entering their demented years. “How to screenshot on windows” was right behind this, in #2. Next was “how to file a tax extension,” making its first appearance though procrastination is obviously as old as time. Fourth place went to “how many ounces in a gallon,” which shows that Americans are apparently no better at math than they were four years ago, but at least they’re thinking bigger, because last time we saw “how many ounces in a cup.” Fifth place went to “how far is the moon from earth,” which again is merely timely, not illuminating.
The future
This brings us to the most exciting part of the post, where we stop living in the past and ask Google about what’s on the horizon. I started with “am I going…” Compared to last time, I see a whole lot of repeated queries: am I going crazy, am I going to be okay, am I going to hell, am I going blind? There’s kind of a sadness, I think, about people googling these important and existential questions when they have to know Google won’t have the answers, at least not anything they can trust. I wonder if these people are like the speaker in Poe’s “The Raven,” who keeps asking this bird questions—“Is there balm in Gilead?” and (in essence) “will I get over my lost Lenore?”—because he knows the raven won’t answer, other than “Nevermore,” and he wants to torment himself, like some ritual act of self-flagellation. These first perennial Autocomplete queries were so sad, I was almost cheered up by the fifth one, the relatively harmless “am I going to owe taxes in 2025.” (Uh, ask your tax software, dude! Problem solved…)
And now we are on to our final Autocomplete query, “will I ever.” These are very similar to four and eight years ago, with repeat appearances of “will I ever find love,” “will I ever be able to afford a house,” “will I ever be happy,” and “will I ever find love again.” What’s instructive are the suggestions we no longer see: “will I ever get a ps5” and “will I ever get a job.” I guess four years ago it was hard to get a PS5 (don’t worry, Gemini says supply has largely caught up with demand!), but at least people had jobs. I feel bad that people are putting this lugubrious “will I ever get a job?” query to Google, knowing it’s probably as hopeless as asking “am I going to hell?” or “is there balm in Gilead?” All I can advise is a) try touching up your LinkedIn profile, and b) it’s not you … it’s them.
And now, following the tradition I established four and eight years ago, I’ll abandon Google and its Autocomplete and turn to the Magic 8-Ball at www.ask8ball.net. I asked it, “Will I ever be good enough?” It promptly replied, “Without a doubt.” Maybe too promptly … I mean, not even AI seems that fast! So just to make sure that this utterance wasn’t its only stock and store, I asked it, “Is there balm in Gilead?” It answered, “Reply hazy, try again.” I guess I’ll have to google it.
Previous Autocomplete Zeitgeist posts
