![]() He was also specifically designed to swing as he was being picked up, like a real man holding on for dear life. He would even be dressed in specially designed costumes when dropped in particular areas or during certain festivals, like an alien costume when near Area 51, or a leprechaun outfit on St Patricks’ Day. This video went on to become Google’s first viral video on YouTube. Incidentally, Germick now leads the Google Doodle Team. Then finally, Pegman was born! He was introduced in a YouTube video about Google Maps Street View in 2009, and starred Ryan Germick, the designer behind Pegman, dressed in a blockish yellow suit and wandering around San Francisco. The figure became simpler and had less discernible features - at 32 pixels, it wasn’t much to work with anyway. Pegman began first as Pegwoman (feminists rejoice!), which gave way to a Tofu man. They then went for a humanoid form, but cycled through several different designs. You don’t want to be throwing an eyeball. “It was weird to pick up an eyeball,” says Andy Szybalski, one of the original Pegman designers, to Buzzfeed. It was later scrapped in favour of our favourite yellow man because the idea of picking up eyeballs was just too icky. The idea that preceded Pegman was much less appealing: it was literal eyeballs - ones that you’d have to drag-and-drop onto the map to expand Street View. He was first introduced in 2008 - a full year after Street View was born - as a way for us to expand Street View to fill the whole map window. Shouldn’t we at least go on a second date first? But while you might’ve used him and exploited him to satisfy your wanderlust, you probably don’t know much about him. If you’ve ever played around with Google Maps, trying to look for the front of your house or explore neighbourhoods in other countries, you would have met Google’s little yellow man.
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