An ode to the 'randomize' button

Google’s button has nothing to do with luck. It actually shows you the first search result, something it took me an embarrassingly long time to figure out. I always thought that if I hit IFL on, say, ‘dogs’, I’d get a dog related webpage plucked randomly from the entire internet. Pretty stupid. But it’s a compelling idea, right?

is something of a dirty word nowadays. For people who came of age in the late noughties it sparks ‘Nam flashbacks of pale teens, their hair stiff with neon dye, blurting out nouns like and to demonstrate their irreverent wit. Put those children aside for a moment. Consider instead the crowning jewel of a character creation screen: the button.

I love the word ‘randomize’. It sounds like something Jean-Luc Picard would bark in a moment of stress. So high-tec, so powerful. Slam down the randomizer to see something never before witnessed by human eyes. It’s an inherently fun concept, and so , too. Oli Welsh waxed lyrical on the power of randomization in his Champions Online preview, calling the game an ‘inexhaustible factory for charismatic super-beings’. Satisfying as it may be to tweak your character’s eyebrow density just-so, there’s an equal thrill in being thrown a random jumble of parts and powers and told, in the style of Project Runway,

Most of us have a randomize button that’s close to our heart. Mine is in The Sims 3. I spent long childhood summers hovering over my sister’s shoulder, relishing that crisp dice roll sound effect as she made and unmade smooth-skinned suburban avatars, each with a random personality to match their random face. We’d call this awful person ‘Willow’ and drown her in a swimming pool.