My Random Muses

Since its official launch in August 2008, Google Suggest has been fuelling a new auto-complete meme that has taken off on social sites like Digg and Reddit and even encouraged news sites like Slate to take a pseudo-sociolinguistic look at Google's most popular searches. What we search can tell us a lot about who we are, so we thought it would be funny illuminating to use Google Canada's version of Suggest to find and dissect common queries about Toronto.

Toronto is Full of Celebrity Stalkers

In all fairness, Rachel McAdams and Drake are a lot more virulent than any flu.

Toronto's Inferiority Complex

Oh well, at least the internet thinks we're better than Vancouver and Montreal. (The highlighted query is a misquoted line from an episode of 30 Rock.)

Cold Comfort

We can blame this one on that Coors Light ad.

What the Funk?

After this summer's city workers' strike, Tourism Toronto launched a new campaign with the slogan: "Toronto never smelled so good." It looks like it's had an impact.

Then Again

...That was a lot of garbage.

Something in the Water

Perhaps Toronto doesn't have the third-best tap water in North America after all.

Go Leafs Go?

We're surprised there aren't more results for this one.

UofT is the Place To Be!

Not that anyone at Torontoist would know anything about this.

The Idiot Syndrome

Google Suggest can also provide useful information about local and federal politicians.

American Stylez

Of course, Google.com, which is mostly fed by U.S. queries, has its own flavour. We don't remember what state Toronto is in, but we'll write our congressperson and find out. And as for the city's providence, we always suspected that Toronto was blessed by God.

(via)