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Google Just Ruined Six Degrees of Kevin Bacon

Have you ever play Six Degrees of Kevin Bacon? You know, the one where you name an actor, and then all your friends put their heads together to try and connect that actor's career to Kevin Bacon in no more than six associations. This involves lots of...

Have you ever play Six Degrees of Kevin Bacon? You know, the one where you name an actor, and then all your friends put their heads together to try and connect that actor’s career to Kevin Bacon in no more than six associations. This involves lots of head-scratching and remembering horrible movies you saw in high school. And sure enough, the trick usually works since Kevin Bacon has worked with pretty much everybody in the biz. It’s great for car trips.

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Well, Google’s ruined it now. Six Degrees of Kevin Bacon is now a native feature in Google Search. Just type in “Bacon number [insert actors name],” and Google’s algorithm will spit out the web of connections in a split second. The results look like this:

It turns out, by the way, that almost everybody in the history of Hollywood is closely connected to Mr. Bacon:

This new Google trick takes all the fun out of the game. Forget about cozying up with hot chocolate and three best friends on a Saturday night for a classic session of using your brain. Because now, whenever you play Six Degrees of Kevin Bacon, some asshole is just going whip out their smartphone, pull that Google trick and give up the answer before anyone has the chance to remember who else played the wives in Apollo 13 or the rafting guide in The River Wild. Also, Bill Murray was in Wild Things?!

Now, some people out there will hold this new feature up as an example of Google bringing information to your fingertips, more quickly and more creatively. I don’t buy that. This is clearly just another example of Google making us stupid.