the zeitgeist: sarah palin explains life, love, and why she loves the jonas brothers

Everyone seems to be after the zeitgeist. Last year The Dark Knight was advertised as capturing the zeitgeist of our nation which I suppose was meant to suggest that everyone is corrupt and chasing evil, even if that means our own demons, so why not plunk down a 10 spot and forget that the End is Near.

But once the calendar flipped into '09, regardless that the economy had yet to follow suit, TDK quickly lost much of its vulgar charm. Suddenly it seemed everyone, even politicians who formerly complained about our sound bite culture, were all a Twitter. The book, due this the spring, will surely be more than 140 words.


But beyond the marketing campaigns to define cool, the moment does not stand still even as we are tempted to rest. Therefore, google to the rescue. The same software that allows the government and industry types to track your every whim provides an estimator of the moment, or the moment just passed. Look at the most frequently searched terms over the past the year and the zeitgeist is defined for you. I'll warn you though, it can be depressing. Here's the 2008 top ten list.

Fastest Rising (Global)
1. sarah palin
2. beijing 2008
3. facebook login
4. tuenti
5. heath ledger
6. obama
7, nasza klasa
8. wer kennt wen
9. euro 2008
10. jonas brothers

Even though Sarah Palin topped the 2008 list it's not completely depressing. The top two searches involving the string What is? were what is life? and what is love?. Apparently we haven't completely lost our minds although one is left wonder how many folks are in love with Sarah Palin and believe that she was sent her to explain the meaning of life.

Note that Tuenti, nasza klasa, and wer kennt wen are Spanish-, Polish-, and German-language social engineering sites along the lines of facebook. So it would seem that, the zeitgeist never really changes from year-to-year or culture-to-culture. People just want to hook up with one another and will use whatever tools are at hand to try and do so.

zeitgeist! from google