Tuesday, March 15, 2011

Google Won't Stop Creeping on my Browsing History

I’ve hit a new low.  I used to think that I couldn’t get any more pathetic than my current status.  I'm a 25 year-old college graduate living at home with my parents, still taking a cheese sandwich to work every day for lunch and spending every night reading and playing computer games in my bedroom.  I figured that was unquestionably as low as I could go, and that up was the only direction I could possibly go from there.    

But then Google started spying on me.

After taking an unsolicited and, frankly, creepy look through a history of my most frequent Googles, It started tailoring the advertisements It was showing me to include certain things that It thought I would enjoy.  

It took me a while to notice at first: a helpful banner advertising an antique book dealer, the occasional pop-up for clothing stores from which I‘ve ordered in the past, an artfully placed ad asking if I have any unwanted belly-fat that I need to get rid of (how does It know??  How???), that sort of thing.  

And then.  It came at night, while I was blithely perusing the Foxtrot cartoon website.  A large, lime-green banner with flashing blue lettering spelling out the URL for the website Geek2Geek.com.  

Oh yes.  An online dating site.  For geeks.   

Holy crap, you guys.  Seriously??  I mean, I have nothing against geeks.  Lots of my friends are geeks.  I'm rather geeky myself, although I think I would classify myself as more of a nerd, because while a geek is actually super smart in a concentrated area, I just spend a lot of time watching Star Trek: The Next Generation and reading fantasy novels.  And blogging.  And laughing at physics-related cartoons even though half the time I don't really know what I'm laughing at.  It just makes me feel smart to read them.  

So, nothing against geeks, but I'm slightly miffed that Google thinks I am so unsalvageable that I can't even procure a lousy first date with a mainstream person.  Granted, I like to listen to the Star Wars soundtrack on my ipod and re-enact the movie in my mind when I'm bored at work ("Get clear, Wedge, you can't do any more good back there!"), and I may or may not have dressed up as the Queen of the Renaissance Fair for the last two Halloweens in a row.  Okay I'm not making a very good case for myself, here.   

But apparently Google sniffed out my “single” status on Facebook, and that in combination with the amount of time I spend on websites like xkcd and the aforementioned Foxtrot was enough to set off some cyber alarm bell and alert the internet to the fact that I am a helpless, single geek who is unable to find romance with anyone other than my own kind.  

Which is kind of true.  

Not that I’m looking or anything.

1 comment:

La Toya said...

I love your blog as you know. Your posts are so awesome!! And this is hilarious! Geek 2 Geek?! I didn't even know they HAD that! I was also wondering how the advertisements knew what I liked Dunkin' Donuts.