There is a new interactive website that tracks social media users’ mentions of god and categorizes them in a satirical way. Appropriately born on Good Friday, the site, which pulls data from Facebook, Twitter and Instagram, bills itself as “tracking god and all that he does in real-time.”
Chicago-based copywriter Kevin Lynch created the site after he and his colleagues noticed the propagation of “thank you god” messages offline. It’s common for athletes, movie stars and others blessed with success to attribute their good fortune to god.
“Obviously, God is busier than we thought,” says Lynch. ‘Someone should be keeping tabs on His daily achievements.”
As an example, the satirical site tracks how many times “god” and “coffee” were mentioned in the same post as compared to “god” and “beer,” for instance when someone “thanks god for coffee.” At the time of this writing God had 277 thanks for giving us the caffeinated beverage versus just 19 for beer.
Another section is “god is a matchmaker,” where users can see how many people are currently thanking god for their significant others. In “god’s a geek,” users can witness how many phones “the great iAm” has created. There are also “god achievements” that grant badges the almighty has earned for his handiwork. For instance, the “alarm clock badge” measures the number of people “god roused from bed today.” Other badges recognize god’s hand in people getting paid on payday, getting motivated enough to work out, and having McDonalds.
The site compiles the data it collects into a map of the US showing in real time which states are responsible for the most god mentions. Currently it’s Texas.
There are a few flaws with the site’s data-scraping algorithm, highlighted by instances the context doesn’t always match the category. For example, the “god gets angry” section aims to compile messages where “god” and “damn” are used together, but some tweets just happen to include both words independently.
The search for god on the internet starts here.
Source: Mashable
