Should I colour my hair and other stories from The Algorithm

Today's Good one, Wilson is brought to you by the ads in my Instagram feed, and what they potentially say about me.

I remember when personalised ads determined by browsing history were young, and I wasn’t really sure what was going on, and I embarrassed myself by sending a group email with a screenshot of our fantasy football site advertising my book.

Me: ‘How good is this! MY BOOK is a banner ad on the Dreamteam site! I’ve finally made it!’

All of Them: ‘Bad news Tone. Is there any chance you’ve been googling yourself?’

Now I’m older and savvier and know how it works. The ads I get are tailored specifically for me, and the deal is that I get to waste my life scrolling slowly through things I’m not interested in, and they get to harvest my personal details and sell me things and build replicant versions of me until one of us buys a cute little plane toy that the man in the ad throws out the office window and it actually turns right around and comes back and lands on his desk!

This week I decided to screenshot the ads curated by Zuckerberg and Co., to give a sense of who they think I am.

Follow me on Instagram, Follow me on Facebook

1. Ripped Santa

The people at Yogago have their hopes well and truly pinned on me. I once made the mistake of watching a five minute video on losing your middle aged gut, and the algorithm now suspects (correctly) that I have a gut. I’d like to think that they have me pegged as the ripped young man on the right in the above pic, but I’m almost certain I’m meant to be Ripped Santa on the left.

After all, he’s the recurring character:

Likelihood of purchase — <30% but not impossible. It depends how lazy the workouts actually are. I can’t tell without buying.

2. An Oodie for the Footy

This is one of those scary ones where the internet was listening to conversations, for hints of what to sell me. Last weekend I said, ‘hey Tam, Alice’s invite says bring your Oodie but it doesn’t say bring sleeping bags. Can you just assume that every nine year old has an Oodie nowadays?’

The Oodie ads were in the feed later that day. Because, as we know, Zuckerberg and the motherzuckers who work for him are listening to everything we say,

Do I personally own an Oodie? No. Would I like to own an Oodie. No. Will I buy Oodies for the various layabouts in my life who have time to sit around in Oodies? Yes.

Well played Zuckerberg.

Likelihood of purchase: > 85%

3. Self Help Me, God

This one was a shock. It’s possible the Lords of the Algorithm got wind of the fact the fact that I write this Substack, and some of the posts wade into waters that are vaguely inspirational. But ‘you are enough’? Hmmm. And ‘dear person behind me, the world is a better place with you in it, love, the person in front of you.’?

That sort of deeply sincere community mawkishness isn’t really me. I’m also a fraction surprised at their choice of hoodie model. If I saw him in the street, pulling that face and pointing to the hoodie in the way that he is, I’d take the ‘you are enough’ to mean, ‘I won’t have to mug anyone else today. You are enough.’

I suspect Zuckerberg thinks I’m coveting printed hoodies because I purchased a printed T-shirt from Red Bubble five days ago. But it wasn’t quasi religious baptismal aphorisms I went for. I wanted Jack Black’s ‘Gettin ‘ Lucky in Kentucky’ T-shirt from School of Rock, or at least I thought I did at 12.45am last Thursday morning.

Likelihood of hoodie purchase - 0%

Red Bubble didn’t warn me that Jack Black’s two green tones on this shirt make it infinitely cooler and more vintage than the lime monstrosity I invested in. Still, something to wear for chair aerobics I guess.

4. Falling Towards 52

Really? Already? I know I’ve been a little hobbled in 2024, with my half knee replacement in March and ankle fusion booked for the end of the year, but a falls detection alarm? At 51? F*ck you Zuck. Surely it’s only five minutes since I was up all night rocking out to Iggy Pop headlining the Falls Festival. Actually that was — 1995. Thirty years next year. Maybe I am in the falls demographic? Maybe I’ll ask for one from Ripped Santa for Christmas.

My mate Daff often used to joke, ‘there’ll come a day when you stop falling over and start having falls’. This is a great line, that’s been made more than a little bittersweet for the fact that for Daff, there won’t.

Likelihood of purchase - 0%

5. Fifty Shades of Bald

This one gave me confidence that Instagram’s scalp recognition software isn’t as well developed as I thought it was. Does Just for Men even help when you’re 50 shades of bald? I can see it’s a shampoo, and the sad truth is that I only use shampoo for ritualistic purposes, to stay in the shower longer and avoid parenting.

This is an artist’s impression of what I’d look like with Just for Men.

I’m worried that it’s a bit Kerry Packer.

I’m worried full stop.

This is what the digital artist had to say about this project:

Cheers Mike.

Likelihood of purchase - 0%