Comment by globuous

6 years ago

That's hilarious ! Reminds me of the « french military victories » query that suggested « french military defeats » (which, as a Frenchman myself, pissed me off in a funny way :p)

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globuous

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gspr  6 years ago

It's also funny how the way you recount the story is the way most people remember it. It is, in fact, not what happened!

What really happened was that someone created a web page that resembled the Google results – and included that suggestion. They managed to get that page to become the number one hit for the search term "french military victories". The idea was then that if someone hit "I'm feeling lucky", it would seem like Google suggested "french military defeats".

The page is still up, although the Google-like appearance is no longer very up to date: https://www.albinoblacksheep.com/text/victories.html

  • kordlessagain  6 years ago

    > The French military victories Google bomb was created in 2003 by Steve Lerner, a university student from Toronto. Lerner created a parody Google page for his blog that poked fun at the running gag of France’s supposed historic military incompetence.

    • woofie11  6 years ago

      Supposed?

      The white flag was literally the national standard of France for a while.

      https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/White_flag#Ancien_R%C3%A9gime_...

      France's second-greatest or third-greatest national hero literally sacrificed all the women and children to save himself (and failed to save himself, at that):

      https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Battle_of_Alesia#Siege

      Not to mention France's betrayal of Poland at the start of WWII (there was a mutual defense pact, which France satisificed trying to not annoy Germany):

      https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/World_War_II#War_breaks_out_in...

      Failing to face Germany together, France then promptly got conquered itself, providing scant resistance even when attacked. It then collaborated with the Nazis.

      Then there are the English raiding parties into France. Remember the Black Prince? Heh. France was way bigger, but way cowardlier. The "flower of European chivalry" was killed altogether by a bunch of poor peasants from England because it turned out the French knights had zero discipline.

      The only time when France had its military act together was during the time of Napoleon. Otherwise, it had a modest success by bullying technologically-inferior places during the age of colonialism.

      After two millennia of this sort of crap...