Duck, Duck, Go

Life in the Boomer Lane believed she was safe from being sucked into writing another post about the recently sprouted branch of the human tree who refer to themselves as Trumpers. She could then devote herself solely to Putin’s War Against Humanity and watching Season 2 of “Love Is Blind.”

Not so. The New York Times had a piece this morning about a relatively new search engine called “DuckDuckGo.” The search engine makes a huge big honking (no pun intended) deal about it being PRIVATE PRIVATE PRIVATE. This feature is repeated ad nauseum, no matter how one searches for the search engine. LBL, herself, has nothing against privacy, whether in or out of the bathroom. She is creeped out by the information accumulation going on behind everything she does online. That said, she has always believed that she makes for a fairly boring font of information for others, her searches usually being limited to material for her blogs, art, literature, and any topics of interest to a woman over the age of 50.

But, as a service to Loyal Readers, LBL decided to go behind the step into the information cesspool that makes up the world of DDG. She started by searching “the election was stolen.” This was a no-brainer. She was rewarded by countless articles. The top of the heap was an article from Republican Insider: Revealed: How the 2020 Election Was Stolen From Trump.” Bingo. LBL is a huge fan of articles starting with the word “Revealed.” Revealed: “6 Ways to Disguise Hooded Eyelids,” “Revealed: How Older Women Find Shoes that are Comfortable but Still Sexy,” “Revealed: How to Buy a Swimsuit that Flatters Everyone, Including People Whose Bodies Have Turned into Something That Defy All Known Body Types.”

There are a lot of really good reason given for the election being rigged, starting with the events before the election. While Trump generated audiences of millions of devoted followers, most showing tattoos of him across their foreheads, Biden was never able to generate a gathering of more than 100 or 200 people, most of whom were new in town and got lost trying to find the Target. Need we say more?

Next, LBL searched “Are conspiracy theories really true?” Of the top 5 links to help LBL out, they included “Why People Believe in Conspiracy Theories,” “25% of Americans Believe That Covid Was Planned,” and “The Five Real Conspiracies You Need to Know About.”

Next up: “Why Trump Was the Best President Ever.” Here, the floodgates opened. Countless articles popped up, free for the taking, enough to wallpaper one’s entire home, especially the bathroom.

When LBL asked “Did Trump ever lie?” DDG got some points. All the articles were the ones we have already seen, about Trump’s penchant for creating his own reality.

LBL asked “Is Trump A Philanthropist?” was greeted with articles that said “Yes, positively, absolutely, uh huh.” She was impressed until she realized that word check had changed philanthropist to philanderer.

Last, LBL typed in “Hillary Clinton.” Normal websites came up until about eight down, where she encountered, “Hillary Clinton May End up in Prison in 2022.”

Last, LBL asked “Is Putin right about invading Ukraine?” Sorry, Don. LBL didn’t see even one article that justified Putin’s invasion or called him a genius or said that Ukraine was, indeed, a fine piece of real estate, ripe for the taking.

LBL’s final take is that DDG is an actual search engine. It’s skewed to the right, but it does include all standard news sources. BUT, let’s remind ourselves that LBL only searched the public, non-member site. She didn’t join. Joining, as she will remind readers, leads one into a PRIVATE PRIVATE PRIVATE space. God knows what goes on there. It’s like Match, where the come on is a bevy of human hotties, of all ages, smiling into the camera with impossibly perfect teeth. Once one joins, it can sometimes be another story. Behind the scenes, anything can happen. LBL appreciates her readers but she is unwilling to put on waders and really get into the swill of what people might be searching for in there. For that, you are on your own.