"My passions in life are Gel, Dental Floss, and Bird Vocalization": See what weird things Facebook thinks you're into
19Facebook is bad and dumb for many reasons, but what they are good at is knowing everything about you. Except maybe not. If you go here you can view all the things that Facebook thinks you like that they use to make ads for you.
Ah yes, nothing like some delicious Gel. Also I plead guilty to the Canes bit.
Hello yes I am very interested in Lightning. I would like to know about all things lightning-related and already subscribe to many Lightning newsletters and podcasts.
Calculator? I don't think I ever made higher than a C in any math class past 5th grade, and that includes Math for the Visual Arts in college.
I could think of one other...
Any weird crap that Facebook's advanced cybernetic neural hacking mainframe thinks you love?
- 28 comments, 55 replies
- Comment
What?
@galmaegi
What. The. Actual. Fuck.
@marklog
Not gonna lie. You're into some strange stuff.
@FroodyFrog that's exactly what I said, but I appended with the word 'apparently'.
@marklog Explain yourself
@marklog
To tell you the truth, back when i had fb, I'd have had creepier stuff.
@Moose To be honest I can only explain Fermentation. While I enjoy straight whiskey at times, it's not anything I've ever googled. Dental floss- very important, never googled. Free range.. interested, never googled. Sheep? OK, you got me.
@marklog @Moose
I think some of those things are directly connected.
For instance, this sheep needs help flossing:
Due to its hygiene, I'm thinking that it borders on free-range.
@marklog finally, another person who appreciates bird vocalization as much as I do.
@marklog i enjoyed how they clarified 'Battery (electricity)' as opposed to '(Assault and)'.
@marklog It's okay, I got dental floss too.
@marklog I want to know how much marketing is happening while targeting bird vocalization. A+ :100:
@FroodyFrog That. Picture. Is. Disgusting.
@Kidsandliz
Meh.
¯\_(ツ)_/¯
@harrison if you hit the 'i' next to toast, what does it tell you?
@carl669
@harrison I am laughing wayyy too hard at that explanation.
i have no idea when i did this
@harrison
So you DON'T like toast?
@harrison
@harrison -
well... apparently i'm not a very interesting person. nothing worth posting.
@carl669 same here. mine were fairly relevant to my interests. now i'm worried facebook knows me better than it knows other people. whyyy??? i use ghostery! i log out of facebook when i'm done! i only check like once a week!
@katylava +1 for Ghostery
I mean, who isn't interested in free software.
@hollboll
Depends on what you mean by free.
If you mean price; then software companies (and the developers).
If you mean with regards to what's done with collected info, then the companies who release the software who use the analytical data for their own businesses.
Richard Stallman has some interesting ideas (though you shouldn't listen to his singing)
Also,
@hollboll as far as i can tell, you're training to rob people of their organs while they sleep/nap. the fiber thing is just weird though.
@hollboll Nap and Sleep? You have a blanket and pillow hidden at your desk?
@carl669 She puts the organs into a fiber bag
@Kidsandliz I do indeed have a blanket here. Mostly because it's literally freezing in here. I do also have a nap box.
I think Nativity Scene under Food and Drink is my favorite.
oh, and to whoever updated the thread subject, you forgot "sheep".
They know me so well. lol
TBH, I use FB so rarely, where do they get their information?
@KDemo I was just about to post my identical 'food' section… It's so amazing how narrowly they're able to pinpoint what we like to eat! Nothing else of mine was particularly notable (or seemingly useful for advertising, which I guess is why ads on FB are so ignorable) except for 'Interested in men and women,' which they obviously mean sexually, but it makes me laugh a lot more to think that it's just another incredibly vague thought like 'food.'
@brhfl - Among other things, they have me down for gardening and dancing, couldn't be farther from my actual interests.
And under News and Entertainment they list country music and Fox news channel. Hahahahahahahaha!
@KDemo generally speaking if you are logged in to fb and go to any other site that has a like button or some other facebook integration, they can get information about you.
@metageist - Thanks. It's scary from the privacy angle, but doubly scary that they got some things so wrong.
@KDemo Yeah mine says the same for food LOL
@KDemo I have 3 facebook pages for different purposes. On one I am listed as liberal, another very liberal and on the third conservative. LOL
@KDemo I like food!
@brhfl @kidsandliz @melwin
I'm really in to dental floss and fuel injection
I don't Facebook, but i got my fiancee to look. Under food she has Llama. Under hobbies she has bathing and birth. Under travel she has Obscenity. And under lifestyle and culture she has uninterruptible power supply.
This is yet another reason why I shun the Facebook.
I like waffle. Just waffle and that's it. Singular, so just one I guess. Weird, but not as weird as chowing down on some gel.
@Starblind I like bean, also singular
at least one waffle is an ok meal...
@Starblind I like waffle too. And also legume, and bean. Just one of each.
I... um...
http://imgur.com/a/WFIaT :album for the rest of it.
@Keyeno so are you cloning the chickens or dinosaur or some kind of freakish combination ?
@ceagee Somebody has to make the DIY Clone Your Own T-Rex article.
@Keyeno So the chickens are your collectables . I sure hope they aren't crafts
Facebook believes I like social networks and hyperlinks, who would have imagined?
@metageist Also under "business and industry" the first result is Crazy Cat Lady, so my job here is done.
@metageist Well Crazy Cat Lady is definitely an industry. Do you mind telling me how you posted your image?
@mehbee With a hyperlink!
@mehbee If you have the direct link from imgur or wherever its hosted, you can just paste it in the box below your text on Meh, and it will display in your comment.
Oh @metageist! You and your hyperlinks!
Under hobbies and activities mine says: tall ships (duh have photos of those on there) and landfill????? Seriously? Landfill?
Under business and industry: Science, victory (huh?).
And under travel: Cambodia, Travel, Aloha Oregon (where the heck is that?).
Shopping and fashion says shopping and fashion just as food says food. I must be generic here.
I knew my family was strange, but not quite as strange as what Facebook has to say about them:
I think my favorite is under food and wellness: "Jaw". That's it.
Other highlights included...
Food: Sawdust
Shopping and Fashion: Sweatpants
So, next time you're looking for fashion tips or a great new recipe, you should definitely come to me.
@christinewas - Wonder if sawdust is gluten free?
@KDemo I suspect that "gluten free" is somehow the reason sawdust made the list. A lot of gluten-free products are suspiciously similar to sawdust in both texture and taste.
I have duct tape in my shopping and fashion list!
@melwin Duct tape. Very glamorous. Sweatpants were my only fashion item. Since we share this interest, maybe I will experiment with the tape, too.
@christinewas If I'm wearing sweatpants, a Members Only jacket, and a sombrero, then using duct tape as clothing won't look weird at all...
@melwin - You're obviously living in the past, aside from Members Only, that Mastodon hasn't been fashionable for eras! ;-)
@melwin Add in "new yorker" and you've got :
Aside from the aforementioned love of 'food' and 'men and women,' mine does show some interesting anomalies… Like my 'Places, Events, and Travel' section has three entries: 'United States' (okay), 'Travel,' (have not done, talked about, nor thought about since opening said FB account), and then a very specific location in Britain (I think it was Sale, Greater Manchester?). Total nonsense.
It also seems to think I'm very much into dogs. I am not. Dogs are like if you took cats and made them terrible. But, all of my friends seem to like dogs for some reason, and FB, lacking any better information, seems to have just dumped that attitude onto me.
6/14 of my 'Lifestyle/Culture' entries relate to having a phone, and what phone it is that I have. Of the remaining entries, one is an accurate depiction of my political leaning, one is the aforementioned assessment of my sexuality, one is the college that my best friend regrettably admitted I went to when she signed me up for this thing, and one is that I'm a millenial (ick). The rest are more seemingly pointless generic tech things (use Chrome, have gmail address…).
'Pantry' and 'Pressure' are included in my hobbies. Also, 'Televisions' of which I actually own zero, FB.
'Shopping and Fashion' has one entry — 'Dress code'. WTF.
The only person it thinks I like is Björk.
I see you can add your own preferences. I… kind of want to fuck with it, since it's all such nonsense anyway…
@brhfl Dress code. Now that's what I call exciting. Makes sense, since you have wild interests like pressure.
@brhfl
Oooh, millennial!
Are you all entitled? What's it like being entitled? If not entitled, how did you manage to escape your Generational Fate?
If you escaped said Generational Fate, does that make you superior to other millennials, and if so, thus trap you back into being entitled again (since you are so superior, you become entitled by your superiority) thus are you caught in a hopeless and endless cycle of vicious entitlement?
(I suppose most millennials are just normal people, but facts mess up the cultural stereotype, so forget facts!)
Btw, dont worry, be happy, all modern generations suck except for the Greatest Generation.
As one younger relative said to me "All you boomers suck, you had so much fun you sucked all the fun and all the money out of the universe, and the rest of us only get your crumbs." There is a valid point somewhere in there.
My Lifestyle and Culture includes Lucifer.
@looseneck
In that case you are entitled to be entitled.
I am not worthy.
Uh oh. My secret is out. Off to my TARDIS to try and fix that.
My boss and I were running an exhibition at Brick Bash, brickbash.com today. It is a bunch of Lego fans showing off their stuff, some vendors selling Lego related stuff, food vendors, and we were pushing our summer camps and Robotics classes. Many of our classes use Legos.
For the last two years, Brickbash was run as fund raiser for a High School band. In exchange, Brickbash has the use of some rooms in the High School building, and abundant parking.
More than 3,000 people paid $5 to attend. Last year there were 800. The difference was a single $70 Facebook ad. Facebook ads can work very well. Also, the people who were there were mostly having a good time.
It was an ideal marketing event for us. We are teaching parent and child classes. Here we have an event which brought in parents with their children. Most of the day, I was demonstrating an Arduino based "self driving car" ("autonous robot" was the term we used to use for a small two wheels plus caster vehicle which could follow a line on the floor and avoid running into walls most of the time). The parents were mostly interested in the Arduino, children were interested in a lot of different things.
Note to self, the crowds were huge when the robot screwed up fairly frequently. The crowds got bored quickly whenever it did everything right for a few minutes in a row. No screwups, no crowd. I just kept making the track harder until the robot would get confused. Suddenly, I understand why the guy was tormenting the Atlas Robot with a hockey stick.
My own ad settings were full of contradictions. Both "Extremely Liberal Democrat" and "Republican". This indicates that I have managed to not unfriend people from both parties.
I got a package from Amazon a couple days ago
Inside it was cookies. I didn't know why I got cookies, but they were sealed and not poisoned so I was all for it. I shared a couple, ate a few, and finished them off this morning for breakfast. There was no sign of who they were from or why I got them, but I filled out the Amazon thank you card and asked who it was (and to send more cookies).
Today I got another box.
Very strange since my wife was just asking this morning if we had any floss.
I've received some weird crap around here, but this... didn't actually take the cake to be honest, but it was certainly random. Then I found the note:
Thanks @mehbee! I always appreciate getting stuff from mehtizens, but especially when they come with a compliment and/or not-poisoned cookies.
Glad you liked the cookies althought NOT a breakfast food! Have a great weekend!
Apparently my top Hobby and Activity is Fresh Step cat litter. Yep, I live a glamorous life.
Unless we want Facebook to be even more invasive (honestly, I'm not too passionate either way on that one, but folks are always bitching about it, so . . .), this all seems rather ordinary to me. Looking at some of the specific items under broader topics, I think it might be as much a dilemma of how to categorize in some cases. For instance, there are two anti-gun-violence groups, ONE (Bono's deal), and The Moth (badass storytelling) under "business and industry" for me. Plus, I'm pretty sure if you express any interest--or in some cases, simply don't say, "get the fuck out," it's considered something you're interested in.
So, yeah, a big meh from me.