One of the most uncanny things about being on the internet is how advertisers will figure out what you have been looking at or thinking about and will aim related advertisements to you. You might look up something on Google and then see an advert for something related to it the next day on a different website. Usually you can see the connection, but I’ve gotten so used to the freakishly appropriate advertising that it starts to seem like advertising algorthms have achieved telepathy. You start to wonder what it means about you when you see an ad that doesn’t seem directly related to something you you have never thought about, much less looked up on Google . I keep seeing these ads on YouTube:
It’s like they can sense that my apartment smells bad. But 1) I don’t think it does, and 2) I have never searched for any sort of deoderizer online or ever even thought about it. But the weird thing is that I would never consider purchasing Febreeze—the idea of spraying some chemical into the air I breathe to cover up bad smells with some perfumey smell is disgusting to me. Seeing this ad over and over feels so judgmental.
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Maybe your neighbors are buying a lot of air fresheners?