The Existential Crisis of Targeted Advertising
Words by Alexi Barnstone
Every time I try to watch a YouTube video, scroll on Facebook, read on Twitter or search on Google I am drowning in targeted advertisements.
They lurk in the margins and halt videos. It is impossible to get through a day without an insufferable amount of exposure. And they are all catered, designed to appeal based on an accumulation of data. Inferring my interests based on correlations between searches. And they are getting better and better at it.
Before YouTube lets me watch I sit through five seconds of an ad depicting a lanky millennial with a scruffy beard excitedly revelling in the environmental ethics of Ecosia. I am tempted not to skip.
Later in the day my right thumb is working tirelessly, plunging deeper and deeper into the bottomless pit of Facebook. I scroll past videos from pages I have liked, photos of friends, and controversial statuses of attention seeking acquaintances that remind me why I don’t see them regularly. As my thumb flicks I slide by a sponsored ad for a new type of Microsoft computer. I quickly glance at my brand-new Pixel 3, think about my growing distaste for Apple, then continue scrolling.
On the ABC website I take the political compass test. I sift through the questions about immigration, taxes and policy. I finish and find myself on the compass, sitting between Greens and the ALP. I flick over to twitter and instantly sponsored adds bemoaning the 719-million-dollar reconstruction of Allianz stadium. Black and white images of Scott Morison grimacing slide across the screen before a wave of red and blue sweep him away and replace him with ‘vote the Liberals out, vote Labor.” Alas, this paragraph did not age well.
Companies such as Google spend billions fine tuning their targeting capacities. Big data means they know what you like, what you do and why you do it. Data equals capital - it is the new most popular formula for business. Know thy customer, reap them benefits. I think that was Shakespeare?
Recently professors at Stanford designed algorithms that would provide responses to personality tests based on your Facebook likes. The aim was to get the algorithms to reflect a specific person in the answers to the personality questions. With a mere 300 likes the algorithm was able to answer the personality questionnaire, more closely mimicking the subject, than the subject’s spouse. Data knows you better than your partner.
So why am I getting business guru adds?
No, I do not want make millions by creating an online business. No, I do not think that you have discovered three steps that every successful entrepreneur takes. And finally, a definite no to whatever the hell you are encouraging me to click on. I didn’t spend six weeks of my life reading Naomi Klein so that I could grow my appreciation for the capitalist machine. I don’t mock the Pitt Street ‘suites’ out of some deep seeded envy for their corporate lifestyles. How could an algorithm, so adept at computing the interests of the individual, classify me so wrongly?
What does it know that I don’t about myself?
My capacity for self-reflection must be far worse than I had thought. These ads must be projections, iterations of a future self I am yet to come into contact with, or corners to my personality I have yet to confront.
How could my ability to know myself be so poor?
This algorithm has chewed up all of my likes, all of my proclivities, my desires and my disgusts, and it has spat in my face. I am not who I thought I was, Google has helped me to learn that. But who am I? I do not know, but perhaps after enough interrupted Facebook videos and sponsored Instagram photos, I can build a better picture.