The time a Youtube algorithm predicted my future
“If you write anything on your computer, you need to get grammarly!”
“As a student, I like that it’s free…”
“Bla bla bla,” I said as I clicked skip over and over several times each day.
The commercial still plays in my mind because it was my most common Youtube advertisement before I upgraded to premium. I almost had the entire thing memorized. I always skipped because I thought to myself: I only write e-short e-mails, texts and journal entries. I’m not a student and I know how to proofread. Plus, my computer has its own spell check.
Then came the pandemic. And with it unemployment. And with that a discovery of a passion for writing. I began selling e-books on Amazon, and I started a blog. It seemed every time I re-read a story or post I found a new typo — the kind that a spell check wouldn’t pick up: duplicate, or missing words, extra spaces etc.
So what did I finally do? I got grammarly.
And you know what? I can’t believe how perfect it’s been for what I’m trying to do.
It cut my editing/proofreading time more than in half. I feel way more confident about the quality of my books, and my posts.
But that’s creepy!
It’s like the time I had a conversation with my life coach on the phone about saving money for a new car. Then I got home and opened my computer only to find several advertizements for used cars.
Even recently I was researching an article on inequality, making sure to use duckduckgo.com so Google couldn’t creep on me. Yet somehow Google found out because my newsfeed on my Google app had several inequality articles ready for me the next day.
But in this particular instance Youtube (owned by Google of course) didn’t just suggest something to me based on my search history, or phone conversation. Somehow it managed the ultimate 3D chess move. It predicted one of my future needs, months advance, with a frightening level of accuracy.
And the advertizing persisted until I caved and realized that the omnipotent, omnicient google machine was right all along.
So I give up. I welcome the dominion of, and profess my devotion to our new robot overlords. No sense in trying to prevent the inevitable.
All I have to say now is,
Well played Google. Well played…