Google's V-Day Doodle Is The Best Yet

This Valentine's Day, it's impossible to not be in love with the Internet. That is, so long as you've logged onto Google's homepage. To celebrate Feb. 14's romantic holiday, the search engine featured a Doodle with six candy hearts spelling out "Crush," "Mr. Right," "First Kiss," "4Ever Yours," "Puppy Love," and "Blind Date." But there's more — each candy heart you click will flip over and play audio, bringing you a Doodle via Ira Glass from NPR's This American Life that showcases the "true story of love." The audio might be familiar to some — three of the stories featured in Google's Doodle have already streamed on the radio show. But it's still worth the listen, even for the most cynical of Valentine's Day haters, who should be more than won over by the sketches Google's artists created to accompany the audio.

“For this one, it’s pretty conservative on the interactive side, because we didn’t want to overshadow the audio,” Google's Jennifer Hom said in a video about the doodle's backstory. "They were able to pull stories that they had collected over the years. They recorded new stories for us and they're all about love, in alternate respects of the word."

Together, Hom and Ryan Germick — known as Google's "head doodler" — listened to the audio and made a list of certain points in the stories they wanted to illustrate. (A snapshot below of the doodle with the second heart selected below.)

As for the stories featured? They're incredibly diverse, with "Puppy Luv" focusing on a middle-school boy's crush, and "4Ever Yours" telling the story of a recently married man who became fearful over the thought that one day, his marriage would be interrupted by either his or his husband's death. For those of you who didn't feel satiated following the short stories, NPR is also providing its favorite episodes on love on its site.

Watch the video below to learn more about Glass' and Google's partnership, and listen to the Doodle before Valentine's Day ends and the audio vanishes from the homepage. (The audio also won't play unless the listener is right on the Google homepage tab — so there's no multi-tasking while listening!)

But Google isn't the only company providing heartwarming distractions to everyone online. Besides the Google Doodle and NPR's Valentine's Day contribution, be sure to check out the Twitter @Tweethearts today. Whatever you Tweet at it, @Tweethearts will tweet back at you and turn your words into candy hearts. Here's an example below.

And here's where the link leads to:

Unfortunately, the date to send custom-made candy hearts for your sweetheart with the words of your choosing already passed. Fortunately, public opinion has come to the consensus Tweets are the new Valentine's Day cards. Don't you love the Internet?

Images: Getty Images; Google; neccotweethearts