I can’t spoil Avengers Endgame for you because I haven’t watched it yet (the tickets – all gone, remember?) But what I can tell you is that something really weird happened when I Googled ‘Thanos’ yesterday and clicked on the Thanos glove that appeared on my screen. Half the search results sort of melted away – rather like 50% of everyone did in Avengers Infinity War.
Google ‘Thanos’ and then click the Gantlet that appears (to the untutored that is that golden glove with all the infinity stones). Bam! Half of everything you see disappears.
It isn’t about how much we lost, it’s about how much we have left! Clever!
Obviously, people loved it; Avengers fans or not. It is really, cool!
Thing is, Google has a sense of humour. It surfaces in various quirky ways now and again. These are hidden messages, inside jokes/meanings (such as the Thanos gauntlet). Some appear at the time of big releases, some of these remain embedded in Google search at all times. If you google this, you get a calculation.
For instance when you Google ‘tic tac toe’, Google will offer to play the game with you - at any time.
Google ‘Solitaire’ and this comes up. You can simply proceed to play right there in your browser. You don’t need the app on your device. Ditto with minesweeper.
If you Google “anagram”, Google will ask you: “did you mean nag a ram.” Of you Google "do a barrel roll" the search results will spin!
When you Google ‘Atari Breakout’ and then click images, they all disappear and then appear in the form of coloured bricks which then disappear to the sound of beeps. Try it – but beware if you find the sound of arcade game beeps annoying!
So clearly, the Thanos Easter Egg is just the latest in many that Google has brought us over time. For a time, googling "a long time ago in a galaxy far far away" would fetch up results Star Wars style: tilted, scrolling with a music option too. That went away in June 2017. I suppose the Thanos Gauntlet Easter Egg will go away too, once the Avengers Endgame frenzy has died down… whenever that is.
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