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Facebook ads told me to become a certified cryptozoologist, so I did

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Re: Facebook ads told me to become a certified cryptozoologist, so I did

#101
post #85

Remember that movie about a guy who ate at McDonald's for a month, to observe the effects? [1] Someone should do the same with Facebook ads. I wonder what somebody would feel and look like after engaging with every ad on the platform. [1] https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Super_Size_Me

If you enjoyed Super Size Me, you should checkout the TV series the host Morgan created soon after, called 30 days [1]. He and others basically do something random for 30 days (gets locked up, goes on a fad diet, binge drinking, etc.)

The first episode where Morgan and his girlfriend try to live on minimum wage in Ohio for a month is some of the best TV I've ever seen.

All the episodes are good, the ones with Morgan are the best.

The recent Super Size Me 2 is also pretty good. Not quite the charm of the first one, but still really good.

[1] https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/30_Days_(TV_series)

Re: Facebook ads told me to become a certified cryptozoologist, so I did

#102

I'm very proud of my history of never clicking a Facebook ad in over 10 years... Most of them are really just shills for capturing targeting data to associate with my profile anyway. This also explains why Facebook shows me wildly random ads for Viagra alternatives, yoga pants, conservative news, and better kitty litter than my current brand... All things which have no relevance to me, yet quite often triggering my u…

>This also explains why Facebook shows me wildly random ads for Viagra alternatives, yoga pants, conservative news, and better kitty litter than my current brand... All things which have no relevance to me Well maybe if your cat practiced yoga, he wouldn't need better litter - or viagra. I'm still thinking how to associate a cat on viagra with conservative news... maybe something about Bill O'Riley.

I thought yoga pants were a viagra alternative…

Re: Facebook ads told me to become a certified cryptozoologist, so I did

#103

Earlier quoted context omitted.

> The genius of it is that it is a note for note send up of ideologies of every kind, literally, the logic of an idea, where when you project it on something, the reflection doesn't illuminate the object so much as reinforce the underlying idea itself as a lens. Could you expound on this? I’m afraid I don’t quite understand what you are saying

In Discordianism, there is something called the Law of Fives[1], which says, 'all things happen in fives, or are divisible by or are multiples of five, or are somehow directly or indirectly appropriate to 5.' There is also a memo from one founder to another quoted which says, 'I find the Law of Fives to be more and more manifest the harder I look.' Robert Anton Wilson has some interesting personal experiments about t…

Oddly, you're right. I may have over egged the batter on that one. The smart version of my comment would have been "lol, confirmation bias," which describes cryptozoology, ancient aliens, and pretty much everything else that is the logic of an idea, or ideological.

If you can find confirmation bias funny, like next level hilarious (especially when you are into the lettuce) you can find anything funny I suppose. But still, I laugh a through each episode and can't watch the news anymore because once you've seen it, you can't not. Cryptozoology is the same kind of game of pretend.

Looking forward to leaving the house more in 2022.

Re: Facebook ads told me to become a certified cryptozoologist, so I did

#104

Earlier quoted context omitted.

In Discordianism, there is something called the Law of Fives[1], which says, 'all things happen in fives, or are divisible by or are multiples of five, or are somehow directly or indirectly appropriate to 5.' There is also a memo from one founder to another quoted which says, 'I find the Law of Fives to be more and more manifest the harder I look.' Robert Anton Wilson has some interesting personal experiments about t…

My meds must be off because I’m seeing the fnords again

Hail Eris!

Re: Facebook ads told me to become a certified cryptozoologist, so I did

#105

I'm very proud of my history of never clicking a Facebook ad in over 10 years... Most of them are really just shills for capturing targeting data to associate with my profile anyway. This also explains why Facebook shows me wildly random ads for Viagra alternatives, yoga pants, conservative news, and better kitty litter than my current brand... All things which have no relevance to me, yet quite often triggering my u…

> What a mental health nightmare it's all turned into.

So much this! Too often I will overthink why certain ads are shown to me, as I will notice how they overlap with search queries/purchases I've done recently.

Then I wonder why I didn't disable "targeted ads" in the settings for that service, when I go there to change, it's already disabled..

Re: Facebook ads told me to become a certified cryptozoologist, so I did

#106
post #88

Earlier quoted context omitted.

>All things which have no relevance to me For the past 6 months, every single ad on Youtube (TV app) for me is about Indians singing something in Hindi... I wonder why that happens. I'm not Indian, I don't understand Hindi, and I'm not interested in Indian pop music. Yet Youtube thinks I'm a huge fan and I have no idea what to do about it.

Have you by any chance sold any Android phones you used to own at one point? Google I think does associative linking based on phones. If your phone eventually found its way to India, Google might have started to think something similar. This happened to me personally, except I was both of the people in the exchange, that’s how I know.

Wow, that sounds interesting and slightly disturbing.

A bit like my experience with a friends Android phone, cross-referencing data from the contacts app to associate e-mail addresses with phone numbers on Google services.

There must be a whole bunch of systems like this, that are never surfaced to the public except trough these occasional glitches in the Matrix that only very few people actually recognize.

Re: Facebook ads told me to become a certified cryptozoologist, so I did

#107

Earlier quoted context omitted.

>This also explains why Facebook shows me wildly random ads for Viagra alternatives, yoga pants, conservative news, and better kitty litter than my current brand... All things which have no relevance to me Well maybe if your cat practiced yoga, he wouldn't need better litter - or viagra. I'm still thinking how to associate a cat on viagra with conservative news... maybe something about Bill O'Riley.

Sometimes I make random facebook posts to my page with strategically placed keywords in them based on what I want to see more of though, like "baby squirrels" and it works without fail for about a month at a time... This is what it's all come to... hah.

Please try something about "Bill O'Riley and erect cats" - then report back on what happens.

Re: Facebook ads told me to become a certified cryptozoologist, so I did

#108

I like this stuff because I think things like Ancient Aliens are the Subgenius and Discordianism of our time. The genius of it is that it is a note for note send up of ideologies of every kind, literally, the logic of an idea, where when you project it on something, the reflection doesn't illuminate the object so much as reinforce the underlying idea itself as a lens. If I could coin a term for it, I would call it "p…

I actually think 98% of qanon, flatearthers, cryptozoologist etc are trolling.

And 1.9% percent are actually certifiable.

The reason they get so much press and social footprint is that people love to think of themselves as superior / smart.

Re: Facebook ads told me to become a certified cryptozoologist, so I did

#109

I'm very proud of my history of never clicking a Facebook ad in over 10 years... Most of them are really just shills for capturing targeting data to associate with my profile anyway. This also explains why Facebook shows me wildly random ads for Viagra alternatives, yoga pants, conservative news, and better kitty litter than my current brand... All things which have no relevance to me, yet quite often triggering my u…

I wouldn't suggest you use AdBlock AND uBlock - use one of the two (I'd take uBlock). https://twitter.com/gorhill/status/1033706103782170625

Re: Facebook ads told me to become a certified cryptozoologist, so I did

#110

I like this stuff because I think things like Ancient Aliens are the Subgenius and Discordianism of our time. The genius of it is that it is a note for note send up of ideologies of every kind, literally, the logic of an idea, where when you project it on something, the reflection doesn't illuminate the object so much as reinforce the underlying idea itself as a lens. If I could coin a term for it, I would call it "p…

I actually think 98% of qanon, flatearthers, cryptozoologist etc are trolling. And 1.9% percent are actually certifiable. The reason they get so much press and social footprint is that people love to think of themselves as superior / smart.

I think it’s more likely that they’re doing a type of LARPing, rather than trolling,
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