"They" Know ...

The other day--for a Facebook post/picture--I copied from Google an image of the Classics Illustrated comic-book version of James Fenimore Cooper's The Prairie (1827), the fifth and final volume of Cooper's famous Leatherstocking Tales. (See image atop this post.) As visitors here know, I'm reading all five of them.

And guess what? Ever since the day I copied that image, my FB feed has included, each day, an ad from the used-comic-book seller from whom I "lifted" the image.

The same thing has happened repeatedly with other things--from bakeware to flour products to whatever. The same thing occurs on Amazon: If I even look at something there (a book, a product), guess what pops up later on FB? I sometimes think that I all I need is to pause a few seconds on a FB ad, and I will see it again, in perpetuity.

It's a no-brainer these days to observe that our data are out there. It's just been the next logical step. Years ago, Vance Packard (1914-96) wrote a popular book called The Hidden Persuaders (1957), and in it he says (I am relying on memory now) that television is for one purpose only: to sell things. It's not for entertainment, not for art--not principally; no, it is for those particular things only if the show attracts an audience (i.e., customers). Shows go off the air, almost always, not because they're no good but because they're not attracting a large enough audience.

I thought that idea was kind of cynical when I read that book decades ago. But I was naive. He was absolutely, dead-on right. And were he alive today, he would just smile with satisfaction--not at what has happened but at how what has happened has confirmed his thesis. In spades.

And today's mass and digital media are all about the same thing, of course. I remember seeing a news clip of FB founder Mark Zuckerberg sitting in a Congressional hearing. Some clueless Rep asked him, "Well, how do you make money?"

And Zuckerberg, looking dazed, said what he'd assumed was blindingly obvious to everyone: "Selling ads."*

Yes, Facebook--hell, the entire Internet--is not about "connections" and "unity" and whatever; it's about selling stuff. And every time we post--or copy--we're giving corporations a better idea of who we are, what we like, and then the ads, tailored to our evident interest, come cascading our way.

So ... am I getting off FB?

Probably not. It's so much fun being in touch with folks I long ago would have lost track of: friends from high school, former students, etc. And, for now, it seems worth it to me to see an eerie ad (Didn't I just order something like that?) if I can exchange a few friendly words with someone I taught in 1966.

Besides, I don't buy things I see in ads-tailored-to-me.

Well, not all that often ...


*I'm not positive about his exact words--but this is close. It could be in this video--but I've not watched it.