Facebook ads as a straight, single woman

In case you're wondering, I'm actually a straight single man. On Facebook, I'm also 106 years old, mostly because of a desire to fabricate a fictional series of life events that just happen to coincide with major events in history (and, if you include H.P. Lovecraft, fiction). Yes, I'm weird.

One of the side effects of being a single, 106-year old male is a lot of senior dating ads. But, surprisingly, or not, there are other, non-senior ads. In fact, Facebook sees it fit to try to entice me with pictures of women who I feel are too young for me at 30, much less 106.

This got me thinking: Facebook ads as I see them are predominately political (liberal) and dating oriented. How would this look for a woman?

So I changed my Facebook gender.

The results weren't apparent, initially. But I can say, after about two weeks as a 106-year old single straight woman on Facebook, I can report the following differences:

1. I still get a lot of dating ads, but they are a bit classier.

No surprise, but the average woman is a bit classier than the average man. As a straight man, I got lots of boob shots. But as a straight woman, I get more tasteful ads. One thing I noticed is an ad that tries really hard to look like a fake inbox. Are women (specifically older women) perceived as more gullible? Or are advertisers in general trying to take greater advantage of confused misclicks?

But at least I'm not getting the "no credit card needed!" ads. (Oh, maybe that's on those other websites I visit.)

2. Some of the ads haven't updated to reflect my straight woman status.

LA Business Bootcamp advertises itself exclusively with pictures of amply endowed young women. This ad persists. Why? Well, maybe the advertiser didn't want to pay for more targeted advertising, and is simply spamming everyone with the same two images. Or maybe they *know* I'm really a straight, single, lonely man who is stupid enough to fall for a business workshop advertised by women in skin-tight T-shirts.

I (sadly) concluded long ago that whatever business I would likely be involved in will probably involve fully clothed people.

3. More phone ads.

This was a bit unexpected. Why would this be? Why didn't I notice cellphone ads as a male?

I have some possible guesses.

1. The US cellphone market is saturated, but women are (slightly) less likely to own an expensive smartphone than men.

According to this 2012 Pew research study, 93% of men and 88% of women own a cellphone. 59% of men own a smartphone, compared with 53% of women.
(There's actually a lot of interesting data. 63% of cellphone users use the phone to go online. Blacks and hispanics are more likely to own a smartphone than whites.)

These numbers don't seem all that different to me, and could be accounted for in many ways (for instance, women living longer than men, and fewer old people owning cellphones). But it might be enough of a difference for targeted advertising to pay off.

2. Women are actually the ones who pay the cellphone bills.

I wasn't able to find this data online. But given that, in families, women are often the ones who are in charge of budgeting, then it wouldn't surprise me to see numbers suggesting that women, not men, pay for cellphone plans. It would make sense for advertisers to target women more than men.

3. Random timing

Maybe I switched over at a time that providers have marked as a key time for switching contracts. Start of school year? Holiday season? Who knows? I sure don't, and I'm not going to look it up right now.

4. More weight loss ads

Sadly, this isn't a surprise. How does Facebook *know* that I need to lose about 25 pounds? It doesn't. But advertisers know that weight loss is a better sell with women than men. Boo to entrenched double standards and artificial constructions of beauty.

Seriously, I do need to lose some weight. Maybe I should click.

5. A few more clothes and furniture ads

This is also not a surprise, though somewhat less offensive than #4. I do miss those Bonobos ads that I used to get until about a year ago.

6. Fewer political ads

Does this reflect a somewhat sexist view that women are somehow less interested in politics than men? Or, does it reflect the probable reality that women are less hysterical* than men when it comes to politics, and therefore less easy to reach through FB ads?

*Yes, yes, I know.

Conclusion:

All in all, the experience has been a lot less exciting than I thought. I expected special insights into FB market segmentation, and the different world women inhabit. But I suppose if I really wanted the difference, I would go on a dating website and create a fake profile with a suitably attractive stock photo. Thankfully, I'm not that masochistic. (Goodness knows what messages I'd get if I advertised my masochism.)

In short, this was a bit of a waste of time -- doing it, thinking about it, and writing it. (Reading about it, too, no doubt.) I didn't gain any great insights. One doesn't expect to, when one limits efforts at understanding to a toe-dip into the digital pond. Looks like I'll have to actually listen and empathize with my friends who happen to be women.

Whose Line Is It Anyway: Aisha Tyler and the Challenge of Women in Comedy

Whose Line is it Anyway I'm reminded of the challenge of women in comedy -- not just the challenge of for woman in comedy, but the challenge faced by their male counterparts.

Like it or not, women are treated differently. I'm not completely sure why, but I can speculate. One reason is that we, the audience, expect women to be treated differently. Though collectively women and men are treated more similarly than in the past, there remains a clear difference in expectations by the audience.

Jokes at women's expense are not considered funny, and are often considered rude. (Wife jokes remain an exception.) When's the last time you've seen a commercial that made fun of the stupidity of a woman, versus a man? I'm not complaining about it -- just observing that, by and large, we feel far more comfortable in making (white) men the buffons now than in ridiculing a woman in an advertisement.

Of course, the expectations for what a woman can do comedically are different from what most think men can do. For whatever reasons, when Louis CK talks about how shitty his daughter is, it works. But if a female comic did the same, it seems... different. Is this my (and our collective) gender double-standard? Do I somehow need or require women to be more nurturing, loving, and less funny? I don't know. But I don't think that's the dominant factor here -- it has to do more with how the cast feels they can treat her, and not about our audience expectations.

I could be wrong -- I haven't checked out her comedy, and maybe she's really vulgar. Joe Rogan is hilariously filthy as a stand-up, but usually plays it straight as a TV host. Perhaps Tyler is getting pretty strict guidance from the producers about what is and is not acceptable.

Carol Burnett somehow managed to be really funny. I remember, as a kid, quite dimly, the Carol Burnett show. But she was perhaps helped by the fact that she was the star. Lucille Ball also was funny, though she did keep within the expectations of her time.

In any event, I'm inclined to think that a lot of the chemistry lacking between Aisha Tyler and the rest of the Whose Line Is It Anyway? cast has to do with uncertainty or discomfort about how much the cast can pick on her. They can't call her fat. They can't pan her for a terrible movie she starred in. She is attractive and bright. These old guys probably, if anything, instictively want to protect her, not put her up for ridicule. And even if they did poke fun at her, would it seem fair? Even if, intellectually, we believed she could take it, would we really, on an emotional level, find humor in older men making a joke at her expense?

I haven't even touched on race yet. Could Colin Mochrie or Ryan Stiles really make a joke about her and feel comfortable about it on a racial level? I've seen enough of the old (American) Whose Line Is It, Anyway? to remember a few moments when Drew made some slightly off-color racial jokes with Wayne Brady. To Brady's credit, he managed to play them off as if they weren't a big deal -- and, I'm assuming, they weren't.

We've seen this evolution in TV commercials. At the moment, it's pretty much a given that, if the commercial involves a couple, it's only safe to make fun of the husband. Better yet, it's only safe to make fun of white guys as a bit buffonish. Maybe it's the legacy of Homer Simpson and Al Bundy, which underlined (but did not incite, for that ship had already sailed) the rise of the father as an object of ridicule and humor.

A decade ago, Drew Carey was the perfect whipping boy of sorts. He was a white male, fat, wealthy, had geeky glasses, a great fake-pissed off look, and an attitude that made it clear he was willing to be ridiculous. He even had the middle name Allison! He didn't take himself too seriously. And although not a gifted improviser, he made his relatively amateurish participation doubly hilarious by being adorably self-conscious about his lack of proficiency. It's fun to laugh at him in the same way that it's fun to laugh at Louis CK -- these are guys that look like the guys we could (and did) make fun of growing up. And yet it's fun to laugh with them because they have an underdog aura that makes us cheer when the boy does good.

I don't know what this means for Aisha Tyler and the Whose Line Is It Anyway? cast. She enjoys the skits and the off-color jokes. But she does seem more like an audience member than a quasi-participant. There's no banter. What could they joke about? Youth? That's perhaps a safer bet than anything remotely touching gender or race, but even that could come across as looking chauvinistic -- the old men telling the young woman how the world really is.

Maybe they just don't know each other well enough. They are different generations. Aisha spent some time hosting, which, while not unrelated to sitcom/improv, is a different world. For similar reasons, maybe this is why Joe Rogan wouldn't be a great host for a comedy show, despite his career as a stand-up -- too much time doing other things in television, and hanging out with a social group far different from the improv/stand-up circuit.

It's also worth noting that the first American Whose Line show did start with a British host, later to be replaced by Drew Carey. Maybe every show needs a season or so to test things out and decide what works, and what doesn't.

Anyway, I will try to catch some more of the newer episodes. If I feel like it, maybe I'll tackle more of the differences between the previous and current incarnation, and speculate as to its success.

Explaining the past to a young cousin

It just occurred to me that I'll have to explain some things to my young cousins someday.

Teruo: Ryan, you were an astronomer once, right?
Me: Sort of. I was training to be one. But I stopped before I became a professional.
Teruo: Oh. (pauses) Can I ask you a question?
Me: Sure thing.
Teruo: (pauses) Why did it take so long to send a submersible to Europa to look for life?
Me: (long pause) Do you remember something called a Kardashian?
Teruo: No.
Me: How about "The Jersey Shore"?
Teruo: No.
Me: How about Twilight?
Teruo: No!
Me: Well, between the First and Second Cold Wars, America spent roughly the amount of money and time and energy on these three things that it would have taken for such a mission.
Teruo: Were these important projects?
Me: (pause, thinking) They were to some, Teruo. They were to some.

Nerds: Who They Are and Why We Need More of Them - Introduction

David Anderegg is a psychologist affiliated with Bennington University in Vermont. In addition, he runs a private practice specializing in psychotherapy for children. He has written a fascinating book about nerds. Yes, nerds. In case it’s not obvious, I do have a bit of interest in this topic, if for no other reason than an obsession with fruitless self-examination.

I came across Nerds: Who They Are and Why We Need More of Them by accident. I was looking for Bowling Alone at Borders. But the tantalizing title drew me in. I also take it as a sign from God that the shelf had “fuck vegitarians” [sic] on it, underscoring the decline of spelling skills among America’s young vandal community.

He had sold me at “Why Ashton Kutcher is your kids’ worst nightmare” (part of the title of the introductory chapter).

The Atlantic: "Societal Forces and 'The Daily Show' "

An interesting article from the Atlantic on gender and the Daily Show. It brings up a point or three about women in comedy. But I still have a feeling that I'm pretty (but not completely) sure isn't grounded in sexism that tells me that Olivia Munn's delivery isn't meshing well with what I enjoy about The Daily Show.

In college, I once felt guilty for being annoyed by a Jewish guy in my department. But I eventually came to terms that I disliked him not because he was Jewish, but because he was annoying, insensitive, kind of arrogant, and not a really effective person to work with.

If we can't distinguish that race/gender is one (albeit very important) of many components of identity, then progressivism is doomed. I think it'll be a good day when people can hate on, say, Obama or Pelosi or Sarah Palin without it either being intended as racist/sexist, or being perceived as racist/sexist. But it'll be a long, long time before that happens. And I question whether that should even be the goal. So a question for all of you: how do YOU reconcile the need to acknowledge and correct for institutional and personal discrimination without losing your ability to make reasonable critiques of a person?

The Taliban are Very, Very Smart

NYTimes article on new Taliban tactics

This is very, very smart. As Stephen Biddle at CFR noted in 2008, the Anbar Awakening happened, in part, because the local tribal leaders were fed up with Al-Qaeda in Iraq interfering with their traditional system of patronage.

This approach -- using existing systems of patronage -- appears to be harder in Afghanistan, in part, because those preexisting systems might involve the drug trade. Setting up a new system can work, but it's more vulnerable, especially to the tactics described in the article (intimidation and misappropriation).

The Worst Mistake

The Worst Mistake

I made a lot of mistakes when I was at Cornell. I didn't seek out help when I felt myself hitting intellectual walls. I wasn't organized with my time, both academically and personally, as I needed to be.

But the worst mistake? I let myself get intimidated.

Even after I decided to leave, even after I knew, at some level, that the individuals in my department, or at the university, would have at best a modest professional impact on my future, I was still intimidated, to the point of being scared. I was intimidated by my boss. I was intimidated by my mentors. I was intimidated by the place, by the damn history and brand of the Ivy League.

Frank Rich on anger at Obama, and my comments in the context of this recession

NYTimes Op-Ed columnist Frank Rich: The Obama Haters' Silent Enablers

It's a great read - I usually find Frank Rich's columns worth a read, and often find myself in agreement.

The article says better than I ever could about the dangers of fomenting domestic terrorism, intentionally or not, by using the bully pulpit in such a way. Sometimes I think these pundits are cynically boosting their ratings. Sometimes I think they drink their own kool-aid.

All politics is local

International legitimacy matters less (or more) than you think, depending on your professional, personal, and sociohistoricultural background-induced biases.

It matters less than you think, if you think as most intellectuals do, viewing the system-wide interactions of the pilotless, rudderless international system.

Those who use Occam's razor to argue that there is no God would find a similar line of argument that concludes that belief in an "invisible hand" is likewise irrational.

Most of us don't give a flying flip about the international legitimacy. Those who care about it tremendously tend to be in self-imposed intellectual and cultural - if not physical - exile from their countrymen, depending upon some intangible and poorly quantifiable form of recognition and validation from abroad to confirm their superiority (real or imagined). It may also fend off whatever residual nationalism/tribalism that resides in the subconscious, that which whispers in the spaces of the night words like 'fifth column', 'Judas', 'Benedict Arnold', 'traitor to the race', etc.

What’s in a Name?

What’s in a Name? Weighing in on Texas State Rep. Betty Brown comments

I decided to write about the case involving Texas State Representative Betty Brown, (R-Terrell) (homepage), because I think it’s important to address events that might trigger emotional rather than nuanced reactions in as calm a manner as possible. There are way too many issues to take the eye off the ball and rant about a case which only serves to reinforce preexisting notions of an imagined “other”.

The Houston Chronicle reports that Rep. Brown made some controversial comments during a session of the House Elections Committee in response to testimony delivered by Ramey Ko, a representative of the Organization of Chinese Americans.

The message, the motive, and the attribution

There are always at least three reasons given for why smart people do something: the reason they tell themselves; the reason they tell others; and the reason an external observer will infer by their words or actions. All of these are real, and have real effects - in essence, all are true.

If you count fewer than three, either you are analyzing someone thinking/behaving simply, or you are yourself thinking simply.

Size of social networks on FB and in life

The Size of Social Networks: Primates on Facebook (Economist)

Great article on the Economist about the Dunbar number, which sets a rough limit on the number of social connections we humans tend to have. Also fascinating is that the number of intimate social friends we have (~7-10) has been on the decline. Need to read Bowling Alone at some point.