2. I pop onto Facebook about once a century to prove I'm still alive and so is my family. But I'm on Instagram every day. They know I suffer from anxiety, am a middle-aged white woman with self-esteem issues, enjoy funny men, animals, and hilarious memes about being an anxious, middle-aged white woman. So - I guess that makes my content "relevant." ??? Strangely, they don't feed me a ton of "Writer" content anymore. Which is the sole purpose for my being there. But they still feed me more BS "writer" content than I require. It's possible I tripped up my feed with my latest humor rant: https://stockfiction.substack.com/p/viva-virality because now my feed is overflowing with ads featuring well supported breasts and shapewear clad midsections. Been playing plenty of hide-the-ad whack-a-mole lately. Thanks, Instagram! 🥂
P.S. Do you ever click the little dots over the posts and ask Facebook --nicely-- to stop showing them to you?
5. I once choreographed a bizarre production of Lysistrata set during the Vietnam War. It featured music from all three. I can't choose. 🎵
I have clicked on the dots and asked Facebook to stop showing me this stuff. I should’ve mentioned that because it makes Facebook’s algo seem even weirder in this case. Also, your Lysistrata gig sounds straight out of Rushmore.
Music question being answered first- The Doors, hands down. As much as I love CCR (Have You Ever Seen the Rain & Long As I Can See the Light - two of my favorites), I love Jim more 💚 I mean, he's the lizard king and he can do anything 😍
Currently FB is feeding me ALL THE THINGS Grateful Dead related because I'm so hyped for their residency at the Sphere this spring/summer. It knows what I want 🤣but not really because it's nothing but knockoff shit.
Full Metal Jacket and Apocalypse Now are two of my favorites. Married to a filmmaker who was obsessed with Kubrick and loved Coppola. We analyzed the films A LOT.
Birthdays on FB are hilarious to me. I don't interact with someone for a year and then boom! Here's my birthday or their birthday and all of a sudden we're like hey! So glad you were born even though we don't talk 🤣 so yeah, I agree with you there - they'd have been done a long time ago without that little reminder of who was born when 🤣
Thanks as always for the laugh! Have a great week :)
The Dead have a residency in Vegas!? This is proof that every great live artist and every great eatery always makes its way to Vegas. Is it Dead & Company? Also, on the music front, CCR has some of my favs, but it’s hard to say no to the lizard king.
Should have clarified- yes, it's Dead & Company that's doing I think 15 shows over the course of Mid May to Mid July. I'm hoping to snag tickets to at least one of the nights. Fingers and toes crossed 🙃.
I mean, you didn’t really need to clarify😂 I know the Dead are no mas and I that the remaining members would never approve of a hologram Jerry. But this is still damn cool. And honestly, an influx of Deadheads is just what Vegas needs.
I’m so close to the edge of Boomerdom, that I rarely look at Facebook. The vets I knew from Vietnam were mostly making fun of the idiots that thought going there was a good idea. And The Doors are The Shit. This Is The End.
1. I know you're a liberal commie who hates America.
2. I killed my facebook account in 2009 and, other than hacker bots periodically trying to reactivate it, it's stayed dead.
3. Full Metal Jacket is almost certainly the right answer, but I haven't seen it enough times to rate it within the Vietnam movie pantheon. The only viewing I can remember happened when I was sub-ten years old and I've been too rattled to revisit it as an adult. The genre flick I've seen the most is Apocalypse Now, which I don't truly consider a movie about Vietnam, but rather a movie about how the world is insane which just so happens to be set in Vietnam.
Lots of people say they killed Facebook, which isn’t a flex. But killing it in 2009, when so many people would’ve called it a force for progress in this world, is a flex. Put that on your LinkedIn. Also, you make a good point about apocalypse now. He made a great film about the madness of imperialism, but it could’ve been set in any war, or like the source material, in a colony with no war at all. Full Metal Jacket is more about war itself and secondarily about Vietnam. It’s super dark. You’ll love.
What really caused me to like Facebook was the death of my nephew while I was in Taiwan. I was able to coordinate with far flung relatives on getting to his town. That was the only time it was useful to me. I really don’t need to know birthdays of everyone I’ve ever met.
I don't stream Vietnam movies because I saw plenty on TV thanks to Dan Rather & Walter Cronkite, although Good Morning, Vietnam and Apocalypse Now were brilliant. I'd only watch The Green Berets because it has George Takei in it. Never saw Full Metal Jacket.
Duck Duck Go is a ridiculous name for a search engine, but that's what I use to google instead of Google. Don't worry, Alphabet, you still have plenty of my data with email and groups.
I like history, so I bought James Fell's Sweary History aka "On this day shit went down." And I follow him on Substack.
FB tells me about birthdays, but lately bots posing as strange men keep asking to be friends. I may have to give up Jigsaw World just to get away from them.
PS where is Mortimer's photo? How dare Tom Cruise replace him in your stack!
What a funny algorithm. Great story. Google thinks I’m a Christian. I’m Jewish. I think it’s because I co authored a humor book and we were interviewed by a Catholic Moms outlet.
Facebook does *not* fill your feed with what you *want* - it fills your feed with what will likely *attract* you and connect you with *others* - their sole and only metric of success is the number of *connections*, which they use as proof of value to *advertisers*. Your "interests" only matter to that end.
2: A couple years ago my wife and I went to Northwest Arkansas for a few days to get out of town. Since then, FB thinks I am a diehard University of Arkansas fan. Weirdly even though I plug my Star Wars substack on FB every other week, I get very little Star Wars content. Go figure.
4: I very rarely wish anyone a happy birthday besides the people that it would look weird if I didn't, ie wife and immediate family. But yeah, that and boomer disinformation is probably the only things keeping FB alive.
5: Have to go with The Doors. They've been a favorite of mine for a long time. In a way it's an unfair comparison. If you die and/or break up when you're young, you can avoid putting out bad albums. However I do think the Stones run of Beggar's Banquet, Let It Bleed, Sticky Fingers, and Exile on Main St. is just about unmatched by anyone.
It's weird to hear that you don't get much Star Wars content on Facebook, but that you do get a lot of Arkansas fan content. It's like you're telling Facebook again and again, "this is who I am, this is what I like," and Facebook is like, "Go hogs!"
Oddly, I didn't see that New Yorker piece making the rounds on Notes. More indirect proof that Notes is a very small social network that preaches only to the choir.
I quit FB in January of 2021. I have not missed it.
1. Yep
2. See above
3. I can’t watch those movies for family reasons.
4. I have no idea how they stay in business because of how junky it’s gotten. Don’t use it on your phone it eavesdrops.
5. CCR
I’m on a classic rock binge this week. Caught the bug listening to Carry on Wayward son on Monday and I went down the YouTube rabbit hole watching concerts and old interviews. I think every band needs a violinist. Agree?
Your piece caused me to visit Facebook to see what surfaced in my feed. The first three things there were: a post from the “Old Chicago” group to which I belong (I like history too); promotion of an Atlantic piece (I don’t think I’ve ever read an Atlantic piece); and a post from the “Vintage Baseball Photos” group, of which I am a member - not a single ‘Nam-related post, although I was actually alive during that war.
I keep seeing Calvin and Hobbes strips, which is great, posts by someone who was a co-worker of mine from two jobs ago, and a comic about an elderly couple called Pickles.
I loved Calvin and Hobbes, the co-worker was a perfectly nice person but there's other nice people on there feel the algorithm is crowding out, and I have no idea about Pickles.
2. I pop onto Facebook about once a century to prove I'm still alive and so is my family. But I'm on Instagram every day. They know I suffer from anxiety, am a middle-aged white woman with self-esteem issues, enjoy funny men, animals, and hilarious memes about being an anxious, middle-aged white woman. So - I guess that makes my content "relevant." ??? Strangely, they don't feed me a ton of "Writer" content anymore. Which is the sole purpose for my being there. But they still feed me more BS "writer" content than I require. It's possible I tripped up my feed with my latest humor rant: https://stockfiction.substack.com/p/viva-virality because now my feed is overflowing with ads featuring well supported breasts and shapewear clad midsections. Been playing plenty of hide-the-ad whack-a-mole lately. Thanks, Instagram! 🥂
P.S. Do you ever click the little dots over the posts and ask Facebook --nicely-- to stop showing them to you?
5. I once choreographed a bizarre production of Lysistrata set during the Vietnam War. It featured music from all three. I can't choose. 🎵
I have clicked on the dots and asked Facebook to stop showing me this stuff. I should’ve mentioned that because it makes Facebook’s algo seem even weirder in this case. Also, your Lysistrata gig sounds straight out of Rushmore.
Walter Koenig got a lot of George Takei's lines on season 2 of star trek because George was filming the green berets.
I have the greatest hits of ccr and doors, but I have never chosen to listen to the rolling stones.
I kinda forgot that George was in The Green Berets. Kinda fascinating in retrospect, considering his politics.
Music question being answered first- The Doors, hands down. As much as I love CCR (Have You Ever Seen the Rain & Long As I Can See the Light - two of my favorites), I love Jim more 💚 I mean, he's the lizard king and he can do anything 😍
Currently FB is feeding me ALL THE THINGS Grateful Dead related because I'm so hyped for their residency at the Sphere this spring/summer. It knows what I want 🤣but not really because it's nothing but knockoff shit.
Full Metal Jacket and Apocalypse Now are two of my favorites. Married to a filmmaker who was obsessed with Kubrick and loved Coppola. We analyzed the films A LOT.
Birthdays on FB are hilarious to me. I don't interact with someone for a year and then boom! Here's my birthday or their birthday and all of a sudden we're like hey! So glad you were born even though we don't talk 🤣 so yeah, I agree with you there - they'd have been done a long time ago without that little reminder of who was born when 🤣
Thanks as always for the laugh! Have a great week :)
The Dead have a residency in Vegas!? This is proof that every great live artist and every great eatery always makes its way to Vegas. Is it Dead & Company? Also, on the music front, CCR has some of my favs, but it’s hard to say no to the lizard king.
Should have clarified- yes, it's Dead & Company that's doing I think 15 shows over the course of Mid May to Mid July. I'm hoping to snag tickets to at least one of the nights. Fingers and toes crossed 🙃.
I mean, you didn’t really need to clarify😂 I know the Dead are no mas and I that the remaining members would never approve of a hologram Jerry. But this is still damn cool. And honestly, an influx of Deadheads is just what Vegas needs.
I’m so close to the edge of Boomerdom, that I rarely look at Facebook. The vets I knew from Vietnam were mostly making fun of the idiots that thought going there was a good idea. And The Doors are The Shit. This Is The End.
The End is a damn masterpiece.
My only friend
1. I know you're a liberal commie who hates America.
2. I killed my facebook account in 2009 and, other than hacker bots periodically trying to reactivate it, it's stayed dead.
3. Full Metal Jacket is almost certainly the right answer, but I haven't seen it enough times to rate it within the Vietnam movie pantheon. The only viewing I can remember happened when I was sub-ten years old and I've been too rattled to revisit it as an adult. The genre flick I've seen the most is Apocalypse Now, which I don't truly consider a movie about Vietnam, but rather a movie about how the world is insane which just so happens to be set in Vietnam.
4. Don't forget conspiracy theories!
5. The Doors.
Lots of people say they killed Facebook, which isn’t a flex. But killing it in 2009, when so many people would’ve called it a force for progress in this world, is a flex. Put that on your LinkedIn. Also, you make a good point about apocalypse now. He made a great film about the madness of imperialism, but it could’ve been set in any war, or like the source material, in a colony with no war at all. Full Metal Jacket is more about war itself and secondarily about Vietnam. It’s super dark. You’ll love.
What really caused me to like Facebook was the death of my nephew while I was in Taiwan. I was able to coordinate with far flung relatives on getting to his town. That was the only time it was useful to me. I really don’t need to know birthdays of everyone I’ve ever met.
I love the smell of burnt algorithms in the morning.
👏👏👏
Answered out of order:
CCR FTW, OK?
I don't stream Vietnam movies because I saw plenty on TV thanks to Dan Rather & Walter Cronkite, although Good Morning, Vietnam and Apocalypse Now were brilliant. I'd only watch The Green Berets because it has George Takei in it. Never saw Full Metal Jacket.
Duck Duck Go is a ridiculous name for a search engine, but that's what I use to google instead of Google. Don't worry, Alphabet, you still have plenty of my data with email and groups.
I like history, so I bought James Fell's Sweary History aka "On this day shit went down." And I follow him on Substack.
FB tells me about birthdays, but lately bots posing as strange men keep asking to be friends. I may have to give up Jigsaw World just to get away from them.
PS where is Mortimer's photo? How dare Tom Cruise replace him in your stack!
For the life of me, I do not understand why they named it Duck Duck Go. Seems like the should've spent a little more money on branding.
What a funny algorithm. Great story. Google thinks I’m a Christian. I’m Jewish. I think it’s because I co authored a humor book and we were interviewed by a Catholic Moms outlet.
Another good reminder that the algo knows less than we think it knows.
Facebook does *not* fill your feed with what you *want* - it fills your feed with what will likely *attract* you and connect you with *others* - their sole and only metric of success is the number of *connections*, which they use as proof of value to *advertisers*. Your "interests" only matter to that end.
2: A couple years ago my wife and I went to Northwest Arkansas for a few days to get out of town. Since then, FB thinks I am a diehard University of Arkansas fan. Weirdly even though I plug my Star Wars substack on FB every other week, I get very little Star Wars content. Go figure.
4: I very rarely wish anyone a happy birthday besides the people that it would look weird if I didn't, ie wife and immediate family. But yeah, that and boomer disinformation is probably the only things keeping FB alive.
5: Have to go with The Doors. They've been a favorite of mine for a long time. In a way it's an unfair comparison. If you die and/or break up when you're young, you can avoid putting out bad albums. However I do think the Stones run of Beggar's Banquet, Let It Bleed, Sticky Fingers, and Exile on Main St. is just about unmatched by anyone.
It's weird to hear that you don't get much Star Wars content on Facebook, but that you do get a lot of Arkansas fan content. It's like you're telling Facebook again and again, "this is who I am, this is what I like," and Facebook is like, "Go hogs!"
I’ll take The Rolling Stones, whose catalog I like far more, and that New Yorker piece is hilarious.
Oddly, I didn't see that New Yorker piece making the rounds on Notes. More indirect proof that Notes is a very small social network that preaches only to the choir.
I quit FB in January of 2021. I have not missed it.
1. Yep
2. See above
3. I can’t watch those movies for family reasons.
4. I have no idea how they stay in business because of how junky it’s gotten. Don’t use it on your phone it eavesdrops.
5. CCR
I’m on a classic rock binge this week. Caught the bug listening to Carry on Wayward son on Monday and I went down the YouTube rabbit hole watching concerts and old interviews. I think every band needs a violinist. Agree?
A violin (or fiddle) is an underrated instrument when it comes to rock and roll. As for Facebook, I have a rule: no social media on my phone.
https://www.pajiba.com/music/the-best-damn-music-video-of-all-time-carry-on-wayward-son-by-kansas.php
Your piece caused me to visit Facebook to see what surfaced in my feed. The first three things there were: a post from the “Old Chicago” group to which I belong (I like history too); promotion of an Atlantic piece (I don’t think I’ve ever read an Atlantic piece); and a post from the “Vintage Baseball Photos” group, of which I am a member - not a single ‘Nam-related post, although I was actually alive during that war.
I would like to see a menu you wrote for a new pizza parlor, even if there’s no client involved.
I keep seeing Calvin and Hobbes strips, which is great, posts by someone who was a co-worker of mine from two jobs ago, and a comic about an elderly couple called Pickles.
I loved Calvin and Hobbes, the co-worker was a perfectly nice person but there's other nice people on there feel the algorithm is crowding out, and I have no idea about Pickles.
Go figure.