Replacement Google and Hamlet

Thank the Lord Bard! 

I know that some people bemoan the computer and how ubiquitous it has become in our daily lives. It has become the tool by and through which we conduct most transactions — whether it be business, communications, shopping, study, or our social (or sex) lives. Sure, you can end up spending all day in front of a screen if you’re not careful, but occasionally, the internet provides a very nice counterpoint to real life that makes me like it a little more.

The very epitome of random: type in any search term and see what comes up....

Such is the case with the quick-witted parody site replacementgoogle.com, which sprung up via the NFL replacement refs debacle. The point is satire — to demonstrate, through humor, how important it is that the tools we use and rely on function the way they’re supposed to. What would happen if Google broke down? Chaos would ensue.

Because I am a nerd, this reminds me of Shakespeare. In particular, it calls to mind the prescience of Hamlet’s speech about the importance of acting — or playacting — as a means to reveal real truths. Football players and refs as actors on a 100-yard green stage? Yep. Us sitting at home as an audience watching drama onscreen? Yep. Go on — you can take it from here.

Hamlet: 
Suit the action to the word, the word to the action, with this
 special observance, that you o'erstep not the modesty of nature:
 for any thing so o'erdone is from the purpose of playing, whose
 end, both at the first and now, was and is, to hold as 'twere the
 mirror up to nature: to show virtue her feature, scorn her own 
image, and the very age and body of the time his form and
 pressure.

Hamlet Act 3, scene 2, 17–24