Baby stuff, cars, books and algorithms

How a bit of confusion (not mine) can cause a lot of joy

I’m 46 and Instagram has finally stopped showing me baby stuff ads. I’m waiting for the Tena liners and adult diapers, but for now it seems that they don’t know what to do with me, so they assume I have a manly midlife crisis and show me ads for cars. Big cars, fast cars, all the cars I could compensate something with. I have a car not as big nor as fast as they’re showing me, but still, big enough (or rather long enough) to fit my husband’s race bike flat in the back without taking out a wheel. There’s a reason we call it a bike transportation device. And my midlife crisis? It is pleased with my electric bike, I’ve bought a year ago, thank you very much.

The funny thing about baby ads was that I’ve never wanted to have children. I’ve also never been overly interested in cars. Yes, I need one, but I really don’t care if it’s the latest, coolest model and how fast it is. I’m actually constantly busy with how to reduce the use of it and increase the use of the bicycle instead. Like how can I make it possible to get big groceries on the bike, especially that the nearest supermarket is 5 km away and I often go to the one 11 km away.

Also, what I mostly share and am interested in are books. So why is the algorithm thinking that I want a new car? Come to think about it, maybe I should be proud that it seems that doesn’t know me at all.

My husband and I love to confuse the YouTube algorithm. He often uses my, which means that the machine thinks that I watch book videos, but also climbing and bouldering, heavy metal bands and other music channels. It’s funny how it tries to figure out what to push to me and never seems to get it right. It’s a joy to know that it’s very confused with who I actually am and what I like.

It seems that even my book choices can confuse the algorithms on the different bookish websites. They never know what to show me as suggested reads and I enjoy that very much. It simply means that I’m shown a very broad scale of books and genres and it pleases me muchly.

My reading is very eclectic (why do I hate this word so much?) and I don’t shy away from all sorts of reading and it’s what makes it fun for me, actually. Switching between genres, fiction and non-fiction, seeing the world through many different eyes and perspectives, this is what reading is all about to me.

I’m so sorry, algorithm, but I don’t think that your life will get any easier any time soon.