Selfie-style answers let celebs respond to frequently asked questions on Google

By Steven Winkelman Published December 7, 2017

Did you ever wonder if Will Ferrell can play the drums? The movie that changed Nick Jonas’ life? Yes, me neither. However, if you’re into that sort of thing, Google released a new program on December 7 that will be right up your alley. The tech giant now offers a selfie-style answer program for celebrities.

Right now the program is only available for mobile users in the United States. Celebrities can answer their “most asked questions” through the program, according to Google’s announcement. It’s unclear how many of those questions each celebrity answered or how often they will update their answers.

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While the program is not meant to provide answers to every question, it does aim to serve as a surprise for users who opt for Google over Bing or other search engines. People who use Google will get a definitive answer from their favorite personality, instead of sifting through sometimes dubious and conflicting search results that appear when you ask these types of questions in that manner.

Google has not announced exactly what questions each celebrity answered and, from our testing, finding these selfie-style answers can be a challenge. For example, if you search “Does Tracee Ellis Ross like to sing?” you’ll get the standard list of search results. However, if you search “Can Tracee Ellis Ross Sing?” the top result will be a video response from Ross. While the questions were not exactly the same, we assumed they would be close enough to both elicit a selfie-style answer.

The celebrity selfie program is still in its infancy. Currently a handful of stars are participating including, Will Ferrell, Tracee Ellis Ross, Nick Jonas, Mark Wahlberg, James Franco, Seth MacFarlane, Jonathan Yeo, Gina Rodriguez, Prijanka Chopra, and Dominique Ansel. If the program is successful, expect to see more in the near future. Google has not announced whether it intends to offer the program to users outside the U.S.
If you want to give the selfie-style answer program a spin, input in Google search, “How many languages does Priyanka Chopra speak?” on your phone. The answer may surprise you.

Steven Winkelman

Former Staff Writer, Mobile

Steven writes about technology, social practice, and books. At Digital Trends, he focuses primarily on mobile and wearables…

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