According to Facebook, I served in 'Nam?
One man wonders why his Facebook feed is so broken
Hello & welcome to the shit! I’m Michael Estrin and I write Situation Normal because laughing is better than crying.
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According to Facebook, I served in 'Nam?
I was born two years after the Vietnam War ended, but Facebook thinks I was in the shit. I’m not kidding. Suggested posts for pages dedicated to veterans of the Vietnam War dominate my feed. Here’s a sample of what I see every time I log onto the Book of Face:
What’s going on with my Facebook feed? Why am I seeing nostalgia posts for a war that ended before I was born?
“It’s because Facebook knows you’re into history,” Christina said. “You’re always reading a history book.”
True! I am a history buff. I’m always reading a history book. But I haven’t read a book about the Vietnam War since A Bright Shining Lie: John Paul Vann and America in Vietnam by Neil Sheehan. I read that book when I was in college, and I graduated from Wesleyan five years before Facebook was founded.
“Maybe it’s your taste in music,” Christina said. “Whenever I look at your Spotify, I get major Boomer vibes, babe.”
Also true! I love The Doors, The Rolling Stones, and Creedence Clearwater Revival. But those groups weren’t the soundtrack to my war, because I didn’t fight in Vietnam, and I didn’t serve in the military.
“It’s probably just data mining run amok,” Christina said.
Plausible! We pay for Spotify, but instead of sharing that money with musicians, Spotify invests its revenue in advertising technology so that it can sell my data to Facebook. Inferring that someone with playlists that include Fortunate Son and Paint It Black might have served in Vietnam is exactly the kind of nonsensical guesswork that fuels the algorithm.
“Plus, you watch Vietnam War movies,” Christina said. “So that’s two data points for Facebook to use: music and movies.”
Damn it, my wife was right. We pay the streamers to watch stuff, but that just means that they’re watching us so that they can sell our data to Facebook too.
I’m not bragging here, but I’ve seen every Vietnam War movie, from The Green Berets (jingoistic nonsense courtesy of John Wayne) to Tropic Thunder (Ben Stiller’s excellent parody of a sub-genre overrun with jingoistic nonsense). The best Vietnam War film is Apocalypse Now, but just like the war itself, the ending was a chaotic mess that we’re still puzzling over decades later. Personally, I think Stanley Kubrick nailed our obsession with war’s contradictions in Full Metal Jacket. But it’s not like I post Full Metal Jacket quotes on Facebook.
Pogue Colonel : Marine, what is that button on your body armor?
Private Joker : A peace symbol, sir.
Pogue Colonel : Where’d you get it?
Private Joker : I don’t remember, sir.
Pogue Colonel : What is that you’ve got written on your helmet?
Private Joker : “Born to Kill,” sir.
Pogue Colonel : You write “Born to Kill” on your helmet and you wear a peace button. What’s that supposed to be, some kind of sick joke?
Private Joker : No, sir.
Pogue Colonel : You’d better get your head and your ass wired together, or I will take a giant shit on you.
Private Joker : Yes, sir.
Pogue Colonel : Now answer my question or you’ll be standing tall before the man.
Private Joker : I think I was trying to suggest something about the duality of man, sir.
Pogue Colonel : The what?
Private Joker : The duality of man. The Jungian thing, sir.
For the record, I Googled this Full Metal Jacket quote. Google pointed me to IMDB, where I copied the quote and pasted it here. I did that to illustrate my point, but as I type these words, it occurs to me that I’m only adding fuel napalm to the fire (fight).
Google hoovers up more data than Spotify and Hollywood combined. To Google, my search for a Full Metal Jacket quote is a business opportunity. Right now, those loose-lipped Googlers are telling Spotify to Gimme Shelter. When Amazon Prime Video asks for help finding people who are Missing in Action, Google tells them about me. But Facebook knows I wasn’t Born on The Fourth of July.
A feed overrun with suggested posts for pages dedicated to veterans of the Vietnam War is weird for me. But for Facebook it’s embarrassing. Birthdays are their thing. Sure, Facebook is part of Meta, an advertising company valued at $1 trillion. Advertisers pay Facebook to target us with ads for crap made by companies that don’t have the budget to advertise on TV.
In theory, every time we click on ads for subscription taco services, liver detox cures, and courses that promise to teach us the secret to starting a six-figure side hustle that involves staking AI dogs in online poker tournaments, a marketing guru gets their wings. But in practice, these so-called signals are just more noise in a sea of noise. If you use Facebook on your phone, you didn’t click on the ad, at least not on purpose. The ads just get in the way because the phone screen is small and your thumbs are big. If you use Facebook on your desktop, you’re a dinosaur who can’t be monetized. Facebook knows this, but the greatest trick the Zuck ever pulled was convincing advertisers that we’re engaging with their content.
If I’m being honest, that’s probably where my Vietnam content quagmire began. Even though Facebook knew I was too young to have been in the shit, it got what it thought was some good intel from Spotify and Amazon Prime, via Google. Knowing that the only way to find out is to fuck around, Facebook served me a suggested page for Vietnam War veterans. Maybe I thought the picture was for a Vietnam War movie I hadn’t seen, or maybe I was just lost in a Purple Haze, but for some damn reason, I clicked on the post. Ever since then, it’s been Good Morning, Vietnam on my Facebook feed, even though everyone on Facebook knows We Gotta Get Out of This Place.
Situation Normal recommends
This week, I want to point you to a very funny piece in The New Yorker: “Surprise—You’re Now Subscribed to My Substack!” by Annabelle Gurwitch. I laughed my butt off, and you will too.
More Michael Estrin stories? Two books!
Ride/Share: Micro Stories of Soul, Wit and Wisdom from the Backseat is a collection of my Lyft driver stories🚗🗣
Not Safe for Work is a slacker noir novel based on my experiences covering the adult entertainment industry💋🍑🍆🕵️♂️
The ebook versions of my books are priced between 99 cents and $2.99, so if you don’t have the budget for a Situation Normal subscription, buying an ebook is a great way to support my work. Bonus: you’ll laugh your butt off!
Stick around and chat?
You know the drill. I’ve got questions, you’ve got answers.
After reading this piece, you understand that I’m making fun of Facebook, not Vietnam veterans, right?
What weird, irrelevant content dominates your Facebook feed? Dish.
What’s the best Vietnam War movie ever made and why is it Full Metal Jacket? Get into the shit!
If it wasn’t for birthdays, Facebook would’ve gone out of business a long time ago, right?
The Doors, The Rolling Stones, or CCR? You can only choose one, choose wisely!
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. 🎵
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.