To the extent it's an audience thing, it's got more to do with the audience not knowing what would or wouldn't be a credible thing to say about the internal workings of the search and "deals" team inside Google.

If anything, I'm inclined to think charitably about Google, because my contacts there are on the security team and are uniformly excellent people.

I know the feeling though; I've taken similar swings at deadpan humor and struck out, too.