Buy Me!

I am well aware that I am starting this with no idea of the end point it will reach. Maybe it won't have a point. Oh well.

I'd like us all think back to the film 'Minority Report', or for those that haven't seen it, imagine the scene I'm about to describe (probably wrongly as well, since I haven't seen the film in a while).

Tom Cruise enters a shopping centre, for an important reason with evades me right now, and as he enters the place scans his eyes, says hello using his name and suggests purchases based on what his life is like and his previous buying patterns. A young, naive (I'm still young and naive, so maybe 'a younger, more naive') me was sitting in the cinema watching that moment and thinking "How cool would that be?!".

Well, now that it is happening, I want to take that comment back. It isn't cool.

Every time I log onto Facebook, I'm greeted with 'individual' adverts. They've clearly scanned my profile, seen that I like the Goo Goo Dolls and are now offering me other people that sound like them. The same for Train. The only reason I'm assuming that they've made this more unique for me is that I NEVER get anything suggesting alternatives to MC Hammer or The Spice Girls.

I'm getting adverts for writing agencies, student loans and Leeds tickets, all because the computer sees that my interests are writing, that I'm a student and that I'm studying in Leeds.

The really worrying thing is that it keeps suggesting "Meet Five Girls in Five Minutes" type things. How desperate does Facebook think I am? Okay, pretty desperate, but I don't want a website implying it!

As if it isn't meddling enough, Facebook has also started suggesting friends for me. This person is friends with five of your friends, why aren't you his friend?

You want to know why Facebook?! Because he's an idiot!

Seriously, if I care enough to add someone as a friend, I think I can muster the energy to find them myself and don't need an automated system to tell me who I should befriend.

It all boils down to this: Leave me alone!

I have a Facebook page to keep up with (read: stalk) my friends and let them also know what I've been doing with my life. When I put 'Reading' on my list of interests, it was only because I was asked, not because I needed books suggested. When I put single, it's because that is my current state of being, not because I want to meet girls. Especially the type of girls that want to meet guys via Facebook.

I understand advertising pays your wages. But let it remain vague and impersonal. It's the way it has always been, and should always remain. It's easier to ignore that way.

It also stops me feeling like you're judging me.

:D

http://tearofice.deviantart.com/art/Can-t-buy-me-L-o-v-e-74630001