In this thread, the OP mentions getting ads on his podcast for some sort of industrial hiring company. He neither works in industry nor has the power to hire people, so clearly the algorithm that delivered the ad to him has failed. Or maybe it succeeded and we don’t know why the algorithm targeted that particular guy. Anyway, a few other Dopers jumped in with stories of targeted ads that don’t resonate with them, including one who gets ads in Spanish and doesn’t speak a word of Spanish.
When watching YouTube, I get ads for Chicago Public Schools races. I live 400 miles from Chicago and in another state. It’s like YouTube just threw a dart at the Midwest, it hit Chicago, and the algorithm said “fuck it.” I also got an ad for and an ad against JB Pritzker; again, I don’t live in Illinois. And I sure as hell don’t live in Nevada, and I’ve gotten a political ad from there, too.
I also get not-infrequent ads in Spanish (almost always for Huggies; I don’t have any babies). I don’t speak Spanish and I don’t watch any traditionally Latino programming (unless you count soccer as traditionally Latino).
And then there’s the matter of JG Wentworth (877-CASH-NOW!) ads, for people who live off of structured settlements and want to sell them for instant cash. I imagine the number of Americans who live off sturctured settlements is in the low tens of thousands; why a company would spend ad money on a nationwide campaign to target that very small audience is beyond me.
Right now I see a banner for the Italian Trade Agency. I’m not Italian. I’ve been to Italy once, but over 30 years ago. I haven’t searched for anything Italian or for travel to Italy. I did have linguini with pesto for dinner the other day, though, so maybe somehow they know that.
FB is terrible for this. It used to be that FB ads targeted things that I’ve posted about on FB or searched for in Google. I could tell why they thought I would be interested in it. Now I get completely random ads - prescription meds, oddly specific scientific or industrial equipment completely unrelated to anything I’ve actually searched for or discussed, and lately Kohl’s has decided that I want to see disturbingly borderline CP ads of prepubescent girls in skimpy underwear. That one was WTF enough for me to actually report Kohls to FB for CSAM.
This is what I was going to mention-- one out of every couple dozen streaming ads we get are Spanish-speaking. Sometimes we get English and Spanish versions of the same ad alternating. I mean, I did take Spanish lessons on Duolingo for awhile, preparing for a trip to Mexico last February, so maybe that triggered the Spanish ads? But it’s not like I learned it well enough to understand the Spanish ads at all.
What’s an “ad”? If you’re seeing them, something is wrong with the configuration on your device. Commercials on TV / streaming to a TV are harder to block, but real easy to skip past.
I keed I keed, but just a little bit. It is possible to live a 99% ad-free online life.
Hehehe, yeah, I get weird ads all the time. In addition to the child care products and bra ads (I have neither children or boobs), there was a period of time where YouTube was showing me ads for luxury yachts and custom interiors for my business jet. I’m more likely to buy diapers or a bra.
And boy howdy, the number of AI generated ads I get that claim can be solved by some concoction of baking soda, gelatin and apple cider vinegar is totally mind boggling. Those ads are completely bizarre, and long. I’ve tried to sit through one or two just to find out how the scam is supposed to work or what they’re really trying to sell, but I never lasted more than a minute.
FB give me ads for guns, religion, “tactical” crap, knives, and trump coins. I’ve never posted anything that would trigger the algorithm to think I’m interested in any of that. In the beginning, they had me as “default - male” so I’d get ads with scantily-clad women.
I watch a lot of videos of police officers acting the fool. Maybe the algorithm thinks that, because I like police videos (although not the kind of police videos it wants to think I like), I’m into law & order and shit like that.
I also block most ads on my laptop and phone, but some serious sites afford to switch of your ad-blocker to view their free content, and that’s ok with me if I’m sufficiently interested in it. So sometimes, I get served ads.
I’ve mentioned before that the Algorithms seem to think that I’m a teenaged girl. That, at least, makes sense: I don’t have much of a social media presence, but my phone is often in the same building as the phones of a lot of teenaged girls (I’m a teacher at an all-girls high school).
The weirdest I’ve ever gotten was an ad for a company that sells airplanes. I don’t have a pilot’s license, I can’t afford a plane, and even if I could afford one, I wouldn’t be particularly interested. But for about a month, whenever I saw any page with ads on it, that was one of them.
Or then there’s the other extreme: Ads that are too relevant. For a while, I had a storefront on a 3d printing website, selling prints of some of the designs I’d made. And, you guessed it, I got ads for the things I myself was selling.
I’ve mentioned this before, but as regards language, I’ve got a great many French-language ads when I watch YouTube videos that are in English.
Yes, I am in Canada, but French is not nearly as common as the algorithm seems to think that it is. Especially when one is watching an English-language video.