So, it’s been a rough winter and I’ve assaged the blues with food.
I’m also a BIG on-line shopper, even though I usually make my selections from the print catalogs that fill my mailbox every day.
So I needed some new clothes and my old ones were getting a little tight. So I ordered some new stuff one size up from my usual size.
I guess finally hit the lowest size that a lot of “Plus size” companies start with, even though my weight is normal, I have BMI that is the exact midpoint for normal weight for my height
But the result staggered me, within 2 weeks my mailboxes – real life and on-line – were filling up with PLUS SIZE catalogs and spam. A week after that the diet and exercise industry started to bombard me.
So I guess the universe is telling me I need to diet, oh well.
No, internet marketing is a blind idiot, charging heedlessly from place to place after the latest fad, and never stopping to appreciate the subtleties of potential customers. You do not need to diet.
As an example, Facebook is sending me ‘seniors dating’ ads. I mark them as ‘offensive’. I am not a senior.
The internet thinks everybody is fat. I get ads (not paper catalogs though) for weight loss stuff all the time. I can pinpoint why, too - my Facebook relationship status is “engaged” and all the ads are along the lines of “Lose 20 pounds before your wedding!” FTR I’ve never bought plus-sized clothing for me or anyone else, and haven’t put anything else online that would give the impression that I do need to lose 20 pounds. They’re just playing the laws of averages.
You didn’t ask for it, but there’s a useful website called Catalogchoice.org where you can sign up and opt out of catalogs you don’t want to receive any more.
For about a year after our wedding, facebook kept giving me adverts about weight loss, baby products and infertility treatments - clearly facebook believes that all recently married women are fat and either gagging for a baby or have one already.
I removed my listing for gender from Facebook and now get ads that are in line with what I had listed as my interests. I had put up with too many diet, diet, diet ads and marking them as “offensive” did nothing to change any ad preferences they may have had for me. Removing my gender and relationship status made all the difference in the world. It caused a flurry of concerned messages however, because I didn’t consider the implications of my newsfeed automatically stating the changes. Apparently, it made it sound as if I had a sex change and broke up with my long-term partner.
I made myself 96 years old on Facebook. Now I get ads for Retirement homes (makes sense), medicare info from Obama!!! (odd, but still targeted to the olds) and discount local Brazilian bikini waxes.
The internet thinks I’m a man. With a penis, an inadequate one. Who likes big breasted women who live in my area. And that I’m very generous about mailing trustworthy people overseas money. After I buy drugs from Canada. And I occasionally blackout and post for sale items on craigslist that I need to worry about.
The internet is convinced that I have a burning interest in dating single dads, for some reason. My Facebook status is set to single, so I can understand how that would ping dating ads, but why the specific focus on single fathers I have no idea.
As for the OP, that sounds weird that you’re a normal weight but they think you’re suddenly plus-sized. I sort of agree with Sunspace that it might just be random - it seems unlikely that you are anywhere near the lowest plus size if you have a BMI of what, 23? That’s just madness.
The internet thinks I’m fat, furrowed, and lonely. All my facebook ads are for diet aids, wrinkle creams, and dating sites, because all facebook knows is that I’m a forty year old single woman.
For the record, I’m a size eight, I get carded fairly regularly, and I currently need to prune my boy collection, because I only have so much time.
