Skip to main content

Even Google has a virtual fidget spinner now

Even Google has a virtual fidget spinner now

/

Search ‘spinner’ for a whole new way to waste time

Share this story

Photo: Google

If you search for “fidget spinner” on Google, you’ll learn that the fad du jour currently occupies what physicists call “quantum superposition.” Fidget spinners “are over,” but they’re also “producing local success stories.” Fidget spinners are dangerous, but they also have secret meanings, according to priests. Fidget spinners, like Schrödinger’s cat, are all of these things at the same time — until you metaphorically kill the cat by clicking through to one of the stories.

Do a search for just “spinner,” though, and you’ll see that Google wants in on the craze, regardless of alleged associations to the Holy Trinity, or whether or not it will lead to carpal tunnel. Yes, you can now spin a virtual fidget spinner underneath the Google search box.

Google’s far from the first to try to make a digital fidget spinner. A recent rush of developers flooded the App Store with fidget spinner apps, even though the idea totally misses the point of fidget spinners in the first place. Our own Megan Farokhmanesh wrote about the trend earlier this month, and the piece dives into why game developers would bother to try and make a digital version of a physical fad. But don’t worry — if you get anxious reading all those words, the Google fidget spinner is always just a browser tab away.