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Gay According to Facebook

Discussion in 'Chit Chat' started by Level75, Sep 30, 2012.

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  1. Level75

    Level75
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    So, for people have indicated their actual orientation on Facebook...

    When you changed your "Interested In" to the right sex, did you notice that the advertisements presented to you changed almost overnight?

    You can guess how it is. Most of my ads prior to changing indicated the stuff you'd expect. Online games, geeky stuff like cartoons. Things like that.

    Not long after I changed my Interested to "Men", a lot of the ads I get are now things like Underwear ads, links to club DJs, and sex questionnaires. I don't think any of my actual "Likes" would indicate I'm into any of those things. Especially the ones about underwear.

    So is that "Gays According to What Facebook thinks Gays Like" or "Gays According to Actual Trends of What Gays Like"?
     
    #1 Level75, Sep 30, 2012
  2. runallday4

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    I don't think that's 100% because you changed your preference. I don't have anything listed in terms of sexual orientation on facebook, but I still get tons of gay related ads. The most recent thing I think was an ad for fab.com. I think a lot of it is either done by what you have "liked" on facebook, or maybe even what sites you visit. On so many sites I visit the little facebook logo shows up, so I'm guessing that facebook knows what I'm doing.
     
    #2 runallday4, Sep 30, 2012
  3. iBlakexo

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    I have realised since changing my 'interested in' that i also have those types of ads on the side of the page. I'm looking at my FaceBook right now and the ads are: One with a very attractive shirtless guy that says 'Get a gay boyfriend', an underwear ad, and an ad for a new male clothing collection. Prior to coming out on FaceBook i had ads for hot chicks and online games.
     
    #3 iBlakexo, Sep 30, 2012
  4. awesomeyodais

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    I think it's more a case of advertising clients who tell their advertising agencies "I want to advertise to gay males as a customer group, let's do something on FB" - whether it's accurate or not, gays have a reputation for spending more money in some areas such as entertainment/culture, travel, clothing, DJs and underwear apparently too, etc... and for those companies it's not a bad strategy to try to attract customers who spend more. So in this case your "likes" are less important as your demographic profile. On some websites the ads reflect your interests via the websites you have visited based on cookies, rather than your profile.
     
    #4 awesomeyodais, Sep 30, 2012
  5. Emberstone

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    It didnt phase me... what took a while was to get rid of all the advertisements for gay-bear culture. It took me ages to weed those out, because I am not a bear, nor really interested in bear culture itself. for some reason 6 out of 10 advertisements was overweight, hairy guys in trucker caps with their shirts off. Now I am stuck with gay dating sites, and underwear ads.
     
    #5 Emberstone, Sep 30, 2012
  6. Lexington

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    It was much more pronounced on MySpace. (For you young folk, MySpace is what we used before we had Facebook.) The day I changed my orientation, all my ads changed to "meet gay singles in your area!" Apparently, MySpace could read "gay" but not "in a relationship".

    My last few ads on Facebook? "Get Dentures for Cheap in Northeast Ohio!" and "Post-Traumatic Stress Disorder in Marines!" Your guess is as good as mine.

    Lex
     
    #6 Lexington, Sep 30, 2012
  7. BradThePug

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    I get a ton of these ads too.. I get these ads intermixed with stuff about cameras. (This is because I am listed as an electronic media major)

    I find the northeast Ohio one funny.. Right now I am in northeast ohio. I never get northeast ohio ads...
     
    #7 BradThePug, Sep 30, 2012
  8. Ticklish Fish

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    i have not changed my relationship status.
    However... I am in this gay group.
    and i still get male underwear ad, male models... yeah.
     
    #8 Ticklish Fish, Sep 30, 2012
  9. Pret Allez

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    It's market research, so of course, many people will not be interested in what the researchers think the demographic is.

    I'll sure stand in the men's underwear aisle for a while though. Yep.
     
    #9 Pret Allez, Sep 30, 2012
  10. The Escapist

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    YES I have noticed! Now all of a sudden I get tons of lesbian dating ads...

    ---------- Post added 1st Oct 2012 at 01:22 AM ----------

    But I wasn't sure if it was that or what I was posting. I had a large conversation including the word "homosexual/ity" alot.
     
    #10 The Escapist, Sep 30, 2012
  11. Ticklish Fish

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    HAHAHA.

    I got NuWear, calvin Klein, C-IN2, and I can't remember the other ones. Thankfully the super rauchy ones aren't in my ads.

    I got several other Pride or LGBT opinion thing too. Not cool for a closet person. I have to even hide the fb ads XD
     
    #11 Ticklish Fish, Sep 30, 2012
  12. aaronq

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    Oh my god, that's why I use adblockers.

    FB ads are really patronizing.
     
    #12 aaronq, Sep 30, 2012
  13. Pexetta

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    When I swapped from a male to a female FB persona, I started getting bombarded with ads for weight loss and dates with single men. Much to the amusement of my cis lady friends. 'Have you got suddenly fat and single?' asked one pointedly.
     
    #13 Pexetta, Oct 1, 2012
  14. Filip

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    I don't have my orientation listed at all...

    ...and I still get gay ads xD

    I'm guessing apparently it's some other peculiar combination in my likes and dislikes that gives it away.
     
    #14 Filip, Oct 1, 2012
  15. spectrumsigner

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    It probably has to do, also, with your likes, group memberships, who your friends are, etc.

    ---------- Post added 1st Oct 2012 at 11:33 AM ----------
    LOL, Facebook has gaydar.
     
    #15 spectrumsigner, Oct 1, 2012
  16. Chip

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    Facebook is extremely adept at data mining and can predict with a surprising degree of accuracy whether you're gay, straight, male, female, how old you are, where you live, what you like, and all sorts of other things.

    If you surf the web while logged into facebook, they know every site you've been to, what pages you've viewed, how long you've been on those pages. And they have those sites categorized as well.

    My guess is, facebook knows you're gay long before you change your FB status to "gay" and is smart enough to realize that advertising gay dating sites and men's underwear to closeted men would cause an uproar, so they wait until they know you've admitted you're gay (by joining a gay group, or changing your status) before bombarding you with advertising that, statistically, they've found gay men will respond to.

    Back in the day, my white, male, early 20s friend had his Myspace marked as gay, and they kept giving him gay dating site ads. Eventually, after a couple of months of his not clicking on any of the ads, they started giving him sites for black women, muslims, construction jobs, and all sorts of shit in the desperate hope he'd click on something. Ad targeting has gotten substantially more sophisticated since then.

    But keep in mind... Facebook is an evil company and cares only about advertising revenues, so it will stop at nothing to learn everything it can about you, and use it to convince advertisers to target you.
     
    #16 Chip, Oct 1, 2012
  17. Ticklish Fish

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    So that's why I am seeing so many hot men on my facebook.
    It gets to the point that Sometimes i just want to deactivate my facebook so nobody see my xecrets
     
    #17 Ticklish Fish, Oct 1, 2012
  18. Pexetta

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    Incidentally I cannot see how you set your orientation on FB. I know they don't call it that literally, but I can't see a profile setting that seems to correspond to it at all. :icon_ques
     
    #18 Pexetta, Oct 1, 2012
  19. Chip

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    It's the "interested in" setting, and I think it's under one of the "personal profile" sections, though they keep moving shit around so I'm not sure.
     
    #19 Chip, Oct 1, 2012
  20. Doctor Faustus

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    So if I've been on EC while logged into FB...

    :eek:
     
    #20 Doctor Faustus, Oct 1, 2012
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