Friday, October 25, 2024

Online Ads Make No Sense

 Seriously, online ads make absolutely no effing sense.

I was just reading a web comic, and it's on one of those sites that has a bunch of ads between the comic and the comments.  And I wanted to see if anyone was saying anything interesting.

So that meant I ended up scrolling past the ads.

Their algorithm thinks that I live in a different part of the Midwest than I do, that I am over 50 (I'm only 49!), that I'm single and looking for a partner (well, I am admittedly single, but I have less than no interest in a partner), and that I am simultaneously a man and a woman.

Seriously, there were ads offering "real women" for men over 50 right next to ads promising they knew where single women over 50 could go to find a man.

Like.  Um.  Why.  What.  Who.  How.

But mostly why.

All the why.

I'm aroace, you know?

There is literally nothing on my phone's data (yes, this was looking at the web comic on my phone) going to sites aimed at singles.  There are no dating apps.  There isn't even a phone or texting history with anyone to speak of!  (Though I'll be worried if advertising algos have access to our phone's call and text history...)

The sites I visit most frequently on my phone's browser are Blogger, AO3, Big Bad Toy Store (aimed at adult collectors, but not "adult" toys in the "can't show it on TV" sense), and three web comics.  None of the latter are aimed at older people, and one of them is expressly LGBTQ+ in its subject matter, yet those ads were exclusively presented as hetero.

So wtf is up with that?

Why would they assume I'm both halves of a horny older couple?

It's just...

UGH.


I don't think I can put it any more clearly than that.

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