G-Fail By Google: Portrait Of An Overreaction

One man's hysterical rant towards the recently imposed new Gmail layout. This guy is pissed.

I cannot be the only person irritated to the point of dementia by Gmail’s new look.

I held out for as long as I could but eventually those assholes made the switch for me, and now whenever I open my primary e-mail account I have to look at the washed out gray of each message and attempt to delineate it from the slightly less washed out gray of unread messages. I have to hunt for every button I want to use for every action I must employ because in its infinite wisdom, the world’s premier technology company suddenly decided that instead of reading a f***ing word that says “Trash” I now have to decide between several inscrutable rectangles, one of which supposedly looks like a trash can. Yes, thank you, Google: I really wanted to spend a collection of seconds adding up to actual time each day scrolling over every button to find out how to read only my starred e-mails, you bunch of virgin dillholes. "Cleaner and more modern" is the idiotic nothing-speak they use by way of explanation for this horseshit new look.

And my cool space background? It used to look like an actual window to the solar system, brimming with a burning sun or a chunk of space ice and constantly sending me subconsciously wondering about my place in the cosmos. Now it looks like a shitty illustration from an encyclopedia intended for first-graders.

What is this need to change the aesthetic dimensions of web-related tools every 18 months? Facebook just moved to the “Timeline” look, which is about as navigable as a shelled Syrian street corner and useful for—what? Stalking ex-girlfriends, I guess (Zuck, please explain).

Change is fine. Change is good. As long as we’re adding some kind of value. For instance, Google, you ever notice that you can’t click an e-mail into a folder? How useful would that be? Rather than marking, scrolling, and updating, why can’t I just click once on a folder (like “hatemail from Cubs fans”) and once on the e-mail I want sent to that folder. That would be useful! That would help me organize my e-mail, my day, my life.

I’ve never wanted anything I’ve written to go viral any worse than this just so someone at Google HQ in Mountain View, California, hears this and knows how much I hate what they’ve done to my e-mail, the one thing I basically have to use every single day. I want to be the Rick-motherf***ing-Santelli of new Gmail. I’ve inveighed against moronic Google ideas before. For a so-called “game-changing company” they sure do bomb an awful lot. Anyone remember Google Buzz? Totally called that. Or what about that Google Facebook rip-off that I can’t even remember the name of off the top of my head and refuse to bother to look up? How many circles is everyone in?

And I know what you’re saying: “Jesus Christ, Markley, calm down. So they tweaked their look a little, so what? You know there’s some kid in Ethiopia who hasn’t eaten a vegetable in 37 days, right. Just switch to another e-mail account.”

And there’s the rub: they’ve got me. They’ve got all of us. They came out with the most useful e-mail platform that made Hotmail and Yahoo look like dogshit, and now every contact of importance and receipt I might need if I’m audited and hilarious stoned Gmail conversation resides in Google’s servers and I can never escape.

So you win, Google. You evil scum-sucking bastard sons of whores, you absolutely and completely win.