I get how the game works. I realize that on nearly 80% of the websites I visit, I’m being tracked and followed by a slew of different companies with all the subtlety of Inspector Clouseau tailing a murder suspect. I know that Google, Facebook, and Amazon are on just about every one of these, along with up to fifty others, all of whom are trying desperately to crack the psyche of a guy whose watch list consists almost exclusively of British cooking shows, Star Trek, and MythBusters reruns, and whose listening habits are Mediterranean freeform radio stations and a lo-fi jazz playlist.
Apparently, I’ve broken the algorithm: based on the ads I now get across all my mediums, at some point just before the holidays, one, or perhaps all, of these companies decided I’m no longer me. There was no warning. Nobody sent me an email. There was no survey asking “Was that last ad in any way relevant to your life or personal identity?” One day, I’m a middle-aged guy who buys tenor saxophone reeds, a skid of Tim Horton’s coffee, and a gallon of Hydrochloric acid solution. The next day, Amazon and Google can’t decide whether I’m a fluent Spanish speaker with poor cell service and worse financial planning (possibly involved a class-action lawsuit? I may be misinterpreting this one), or if I am suffering from a disease that is apparently a hell of a lot worse than the side effects of it’s cure, which are, frankly, terrifying.
Okay, as for the former, I don’t really speak Spanish. I had six years of French, and my ex-girlfriend was Puerto Rican, so I can order my torta the way I like at L&M, and I can decipher that most of the ads I’m getting on Amazon Prime are vaguely saying, “Don’t despair; we can help you, call this number,” which is honestly unsettling. Am I in trouble? Look, I just bought the new Evan Ryder novel and an HDMI cable. What did I do that requires aggressive Spanish-language outreach and intervention?
The pharmaceutical ads, on the other hand, are downright terrifying, because Amazon won’t even tell me what it is that they’ve determined I have. They keep offering me a cure via some commercial that spends ten seconds telling me what the drug will do and the next fifty seconds listing the horror menu of side effects.
You know the formula. “Ask your doctor if Zapgonadis is right for you. Zapgonadis is for moderate to severe cases of felinaefebris scalpturae in patients whose octane is 89 or lower and who do not currently collect vinyl or other physical media. Side effects may include nausea, dizziness, anal leakage, increased risk of infection, double anal leakage, liver damage, kidney failure, cancer, anxiety, depression, bleeding from the eyeballs, shortness of breath, and, in rare cases, death. Don’t take zapgonadis if you are allergic to zapgonadis. Call your doctor if you experience heart palpitations.” Wait … but DON’T call him if your eyeballs are bleeding or your liver packs up and runs away?
Then there’s my favorite, “May cause changes in personality or increase thoughts of suicide.” Um, wait, that’s not a side-effect, that’s a severe psychological condition all by itself. “How’s the treatment working?” “I don’t know who I am anymore, and I want to die, but at least the rash went away.”
Okay, so I can only assume the condition itself must be worse than all of that … and those handsome African American men are kissing, and bowling with their pudgy white male friend, so it must work. Wait, am I the fat white guy? He doesn’t look all that happy. I mean, sure, someone’s kidneys are about to dissolve, apparently, or at least they’re thinking of killing themselves later tonight, but for now, heck, let’s go bowling and then throw a frisbee around before we go get a cup of coffee in the woods. Seriously, what bizarre, surrealistic art film is this!? I can only assume Amazon is trying to tell me, “Look, we don’t know exactly what’s wrong with you, but statistically speaking, based on your purchase and viewing habits, it’s really bad, dude.”
This isn’t their usual algorithmic advertising, like “Oh, you bought new Sketchers last week, let’s show you twelve varieties of tube socks that could potentially go with them.” This is targeted. This must be the result of some piece of data I’ve given them. Somewhere, an AI looked at my file and decided, “Yes. We’ve got to get Darrin hooked on a drug, possibly several, so Eli Lilly can get steady, repeat business from him.”
I would love to know how this happened. Was it the smoked paprika I ordered? The candle-making kit I got for the kiddo? The fact that I purchased my furnace filter a few weeks early this time around, combined with a night of binge-watching the new season of WILTY? Maybe I accidentally clicked the wrong thing? I thought I was agreeing to cookies, but did I accidentally click a box that said, “I have an incurable condition?” Honestly, I don’t feel sick. Sure, I’m a bit worn out after the holidays and the dreary cold weather, but isn’t everyone? That’s not a diagnosis. That’s capitalism. I mean, the only medical anything I’ve bought in the past year was a bunion splint. Did Gemini look at that and say, “Darrin is either very ill or about to be.” Or, did Amazon’s execs all sit around in a boardroom and look at my file? “Darrin bought the Chick Corea Elektric Band boxed set and the Kindle edition of Summa Theologica. We have no choice now: Give him the Spanish ads.”
Look, I don’t expect Google and Amazon to make sense, but can I at least see the thought process?! Failing that, can we just roll back my profile to the old version of me, where it was ads for “Date Russian seniors in your area” and “Here’s a knock-off T-shirt with your favorite obscure prog band’s logo on it?” That guy may also have been dying from some unknown disease, but he was at least happy not being reminded about three times an hour.
