SATIRE

Is Facebook Wasting Our Time on Purpose?

Part II: Caving breakdowns, illegal mall occupiers and the mac & cheese addiction that knows no bounds

Algorithms are everywhere. Lately I’ve been trying to do my part and learn about just how these advanced computer calculations are effecting my life. But the truth is — computers are complicated! Technology is a lot sometimes, even for a strapping young millennial like myself. So maybe if I can’t actually understand algorithms, I can at least see what they have to show me, right? So take me away Facebook — show me your mysterious ways!

I decide to begin with the videos on Facebook Watch. The first one that’s recommended to me is a seventeen minute long excerpt from Vice about a man addicted to Mac and Cheese. Why it showed up in my recommended queue of videos I’m unsure, but I sure am interested.

For over eighteen years, the man has eaten nothing but Mac and Cheese. I have to admit that the logistics of living your life around Velveeta pasta raises questions for me. Enraptured, I spend seventeen minutes learning about the man whose internal organs have been replaced largely by macaroni shells.

He has selective eating disorder. That’s why he’s spent nearly two decades inhaling metric tons of sharp cheddar. His friends and family are supportive and at least he exercises. He’s in shockingly better shape than the man from the “My 600 Pound Life” clip that emerges in my recommended videos next.

After four and a half minutes spent watching the workout routine of this kind, morbidly obese man, a video pops up for me titled simply, “NERVOUS BREAKDOWN IN A CAVE.” Perhaps YouTube told Mark Zuckerberg about that macabre caving disaster hole I spent a couple weeks traveling down last month. This cave is aptly named “Nervous Breakdown Cave.” But would you believe that precisely zero nervous breakdowns take place in this video? Ripoff. I’ll stick to YouTube for the caving disasters from now on.

The next recommended video is called “Why I regret getting new teeth in Turkey.” Algorithms are strange. Did you know it’s possible to get a dental surgery so bad that it leaves you on a drip and unable to breathe? I’ll spare the reader any more graphic details than that by saying simply that I won’t be traveling to Turkey for dental surgery any time soon.

The next video on my itinerary is a wholesome clip about two people with pituitary dwarfism going on a date. Oh no — I’ve made it through enough clips of “My 600 Pound Life” that Facebook thinks I like TLC now! I’ve made a dire mistake. But the video is good-natured enough that I hardly mind. Even though they aren’t right for each other, they tried. “I know you’ll find true love eventually,” I whisper caringly to my phone as the twelve minute video comes to an end.

The next recommended video is about a man who tries to live in a mall undetected for a week. It’s narrated by a robot. This man and a group of his friends, after he discovers an unallocated space in a local shopping mall, try converting the room into a proper living space. The space they end up establishing is so proper that they scrap their one week plan and try instead to live there indefinitely.

Apart from running water, these innovative squatters actually scrape together all the amenities of a normal apartment. It even has enough living space to make most New Yorkers jealous. They manage to live there for four years before a simple misdemeanor charge is leveled against one of the men. While I could have done without the mid-2000s text to speech narration, this was actually pretty entertaining. Thanks Facebook.

So what have I learned here today? Not a lot. Facebook mistakenly believes that I like reality TV. In their defense, it doesn’t help that I keep watching the reality TV clips they recommend to me through to completion. Facebook knows about the YouTube holes that I wouldn’t have minded keeping a secret — oh well. And Facebook is onto my niche affinity for makeshift homes in unexpected places. Next I suppose they’ll ask for my social security number. Damn you Mark Zuckerberg!