> This hasn't been my experience, so I tried an image search for [tom cruise]
I believe what he means is that searching for first name + last name of someone who isn’t a celebrity gets you celebrities who match either the first name or last name.
Searching for Tim Cruise blankets you with pictures of Tom Cruise, but it at least says “Showing results for tom cruise“ so you know it did an autocorrect. When I tried other first names + Cruise, the effect is less pronounced than with the Neeson example. Maybe it’s because cruise is a more common name as well as an English word.
I believe what he means is that searching for first name + last name of someone who isn’t a celebrity gets you celebrities who match either the first name or last name.
Searching for Tim Neeson gets you a wall of photos of Liam Neeson: https://www.google.com/search?q=tim+neeson&tbm=isch
Searching for Tim Cruise blankets you with pictures of Tom Cruise, but it at least says “Showing results for tom cruise“ so you know it did an autocorrect. When I tried other first names + Cruise, the effect is less pronounced than with the Neeson example. Maybe it’s because cruise is a more common name as well as an English word.