Turns Out, Google Is a Dude

Google has crossed over to theatrical arts. Over the weekend, I caught a one-man show led by Craig Ricci Shaynak in Los Angeles at Theatre Asylum called: “I Am Google.” And this time, Google wasn’t just a search engine; Google was a dude in a bachelor pad.

With a cool mix of improv, performance and audience participation, this show had everything from Google’s nerdy counterpart, Bing, to his ex-girlfriend Twitter and his crush on Siri. Without giving too much away, I’ll let you in on a little of the fun.

Upon entering the theater, you see Google hard at work answering a multitude of calls from telephones reminiscent of the 80s, while frantically looking up answers in the dictionary and sometimes phoning a friend “Wikipedia” when he wasn’t quite sure what the answer was (although Wiki proved to rarely be right). And at the end of the call, he’d always report how long the search took.

Google confessed his innermost thoughts to us that night, from the fact that everyone thinks he’s so smart, but he’s really just organizing information that’s already there from sources like books — sources, he infers in so many words, that we could all use if we weren’t so lazy.

He talked about his breakup with Twitter who just didn’t think he was “funny” anymore. And he defended himself by reminding us about the “tilt” search and the directions Maps gives us for getting across the ocean to Japan. Then he complained about all the hashtags Twitter left in the apartment when she moved out.

And every once in a while, he’d dress up in a costume and serve us up an ad from Crate & Barrel or Uggs or something no one in the audience wanted. And mid-sentence, every few minutes, he’d change the sign around his neck to reflect a new Google Doodle.

In the end, he gave us some food for thought. He suggested we don’t need to find the answers to everything that pops into our head the moment we think about it. And that most of the searches we perform are based on useless information anyway.

He challenged us to go “70s style” and make a date with a friend without the use of any technology … just tell them where to meet you and show up at the time you said you were going to. That’s a novel idea, eh?

We had a great time at the show that night, and turns out, Shaynak is refining his act over several more shows before he performs in front of Google.

I talked with him after the show about slipping in some SEO stuff like Panda and Penguin, so we’ll see if those makes the cut.

Shaynak welcomes SEOs, digital marketers and Web developers to come see his show; the technical stuff they throw at him during the act proves to be a hilarious basis for his improv.

So if you’re in the LA area (or inquire for details on what I think they said was a traveling act), check out “I Am Google.” You’ll enjoy it.

Jessica Lee is the founder and chief creative for bizbuzzcontent Inc., a marketing boutique that focuses on digital content strategy and professional writing services for businesses.

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