Big Brother is Algorithming You

We know online advertisers use bits and bytes follow us. It's turned my social media and news feeds into something a little more weird than the regular weird.

Jun 19, 2024

HAL 9000 ‘s algorithmic cousin. Photo by Maximalfocus on Unsplash

As you know from my Substack last week, I’m dragging my right leg behind me thanks to an uncooperative sciatica nerve. I’ve been using a crutch to get around, albeit sometimes I call it a cane. The handle is shaped in a way that could qualify it as a cane, or at least a hybrid of cane and crutch.

I haven’t talked about my situation online, other than The Typewriters’s Collage. So you can imagine my surprise when I logged onto Facebook this morning and saw this ad right at tippy-top of my feed:

My first thought upon seeing this: I want a cane with a hidden sword so I can be cool, just like the 1960s Japanese movie action hero Zatoichi the Blind Swordsman. My second thought: what the hell? Why is Facebook thrusting ads for canes into my feed?

We know the answer to that question. You weren’t the only one reading the woes, travails, and bad jokes about my bum leg. You were joined by digital succubuses (or is that succubi?) within the algorithmic coding that lets me write this on Substack, then post it on social media. The pas de deux of bits and bytes were dancing all over the mysterious thing that connects us: the internet. From there, the duo of B&B shared their intimate knowledge of my sciatica to the customer-hungry Cane Masters’ succubi (or is that succubuses?).

Thank you for reading The Typewriter's Collage. Like everything else on the internet, feel free to share it.

Next up: my Google News feed.

Beyond the everyday headlines, Google News provides us with links based on location (Chicago in my case) and interests (politics and baseball for me). All the usual stuff aggregated from local, national, and international news sources. At the bottom of the Google News page there’s also a category “Stories Suggested For You” based on your browser history. Last week something unexpected showed up for me in that category:

John Wayne? Sure, I like The Duke, particularly his iconic performance in The Searchers (1956). Other films I enjoy include Stagecoach (1939), She Wore a Yellow Ribbon (1949), and The Man Who Shot Liberty Valence (1962). He’s not my favorite actor and I’m not big into Westerns, but John Wayne does have a screen presence that can’t be denied. (Yes, I know he and I are on the opposite ends of a political spectrum. Sometimes you have to ignore those differences. The Duke for me is a case where his on-screen fiction overrides his off-screen reality.)

What do these films have in common besides John Wayne? Each one was helmed by the iconoclastic, eye-patch wearing, handkerchief-chewing, hard-drinking, yacht-loving, Navy veteran, constant pain-in-the-ass to Hollywood studio executives, and prolific movie director John Ford. The same John Ford who’s won more Best Director Oscars (four) than any other filmmaker. The same John Ford portrayed in all his irrascable glory by fellow director David Lynch in Steven Spielberg’s semi-autobiographical film The Fablemans (2022).

The same John Ford who’s being explored in Turner Classic Movie’s film history podcast The Plot Thickens. Now in its fifth season, their seven-part series “Decoding John Ford” is narrated by TCM host Ben Mankiewicz, whose grandfather and great-uncle Herman J. and Joseph L. respectively were Ford’s Hollywood contemporaries.

And the same John Ford who turned John Wayne into “John Wayne.” Ford and Wayne’s careers are intertwined through their 14 collaborations, begining with Stagecoach (1939) and concluding with Donovan’s Reef (1963). Their Westerns are magnificent. But Ford also pushed Wayne’s talents in different directions and genres, most notably with The Quiet Man (1952) wherein Wayne plays a retired American prizefighter who returns to his birthplace of Ireland and falls for Maureen O’Hara.

While listening to the latest episode of “Decoding John Ford” it suddenly hit me. I’ve downloaded every episode of every season of the show. I’ve accessed it via my iPhone, iPad, iMac, and Macbook Air. A lot of coding goes into podcasts: recording, sound mixing, uploading to platforms for distribution, and so on. It’s a veritable pillow fight of electronic connections, at least as filtered through my meagre understanding of technology.

So, are you thinking what I’m thinking?

How the internet works, artist’s rendition. “The Pillow Fight-Second Down” by N. Bennington, Vt. : H.C. White Co., c1907, courtesy of the Library of Congress photo collections

You got that right, pilgrim.

From podcast to podcast subject to podcast subject’s collaborator to podcast subject’s collaborator to Google to my Google News feed, the all-seeing algorithms deigned that listening to “Decoding John Ford” transformed me into a sucker for John Wayne clickbait stories.

I wish I knew how to end this post. It is both amusing and bleak, knowing that we all are being cataloged for advertisers based on our trail of electronic breadcrumbs. But is it paying off for the aggregators? Maybe, maybe not. All I know is that I’m not buying any canes (with or without a sword) and I’ll watch The Searchers many more times to come but only when I want to.

Apologies to Orwell. I don’t love Big Brother Algorithm.

An update on my back.

I’m feeling much better albeit I’ve got a long way to go. We x-rayed my spine this morning. The results were a tad surprising.

**X-ray of my back, artist’s rendition . Railroad wreck on Long Island Railroad, Fifth Avenue, Bay Shore, L. I., July 10, 1909, courtesy of the Library of Congress photo collections.**

It seems my spine has a mind of its own. It curved right when it should have remained straight. There’s been some degenerative damage to a couple of the discs. That said, with time and exercise this is something I can live with. I’ll never have the agility to play a theremin again, but given that I’ve never had a theremin lesson in my life, let alone been in a room with one, I consider this no great loss. With good cardio and core exercises, I’ll be just fine.

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Story Links:

Here’s a concise history of sword canes.
IMDB’s list of John Ford and John Wayne collaborations.
I love The Plot Thickens. The research and storytelling cuts through Hollywood press agent facades and into real stories of people like Peter Bogdonavich, Lucille Ball, Brian De Palma, and Pam Grier. Here’s all five seasons.
You know you want to read it. Can you imagine John Wayne instead of Clint Eastwood in Dirty Harry? Here’s the story Google News aggregated for me personally.
I can’t do it, but maybe you can learn to play a theremin. Here’s an instructional video.
Yes, you can block ads on Facebook and elsewhere using tools of your browser or paid software. Thanks to Lev Raphel of Substack RaphaelWrites for the link to adware blocker.

Thanks for reading The Typewriter's Collage. Connect with me at ~~Twitter~~/X, Bluesky, Threads, and Instagram at the handle @RealArnieB. I’m on LinkedIn and Facebook under my real name. While you’re at it, browse over to my website, www.arniebernstein.com.

I showed you my algorithms. Now you show me yours. Comment away.

And because you made it this far:

Here’s the blind swordsman Zatoichi taking down three bad guys in this clip from the action-packed 1963 Japanese samurai flick Zatoichi on the Road.