I Thought You Were the One

I haven't given my heart to many social media (medias?).  I am on Facebook, but not very much.  I think I might have signed up for Twitter at some point.  I should look into that.  My MySpace page has gone un-updated since, well, forever, since I never had a MySpace page.  I went on Pinterest once, but only because my phone made me.  I have no conception of Tumblr, Instagram, Telescope, Vine, or others (though I may be the "mayor" of someplace on Foursquare).

The one thing I did embrace was LinkedIn.  I put up my profile, added contacts, answered questions, joined affinity groups, gave and received endorsements, and damn near everything else one does on LinkedIn.  My profile is "100% complete"!  I like that it's low-key and that I can build a professional network.


And since I bore (beared?) my soul to LinkedIn, I assumed its algorithms would know me, at least a little bit.  No, not really.

One feature of LinkedIn is the "you may also like..." feature.  You pull up someone's profile, and LinkedIn gives you four or more "People who are similar to ______."  Kinda like the Amazon feature of recommending books that I may like based on my reading history.  But more disturbing. 

Should you not be able to connect with Mary, you might be interested in John, who is interchangeable with Mary.  Wanda is also enormously close to being exactly the same as both Mary and John (but a little closer to being exactly like Mary), so Wanda could be an option for you as well.  People who connected with Wanda also liked Francisco.

I always wondered who LinkedIn thought was a Russell-substitute.  You can't access this on your own profile.  There is no "People who are interchangeable with you" button to click.  One has to finesse this by getting a staff member to LinkedIn with you (I have no idea if that is the correct plu-perfect subjunctive form of "to LinkIn").  THEN, you have said staff member pull up your profile and see who LinkedIn says could be you.  The results included 5 middle-aged white Jewish guys.  And while I can see how LinkedIn may have picked them, it seems a bit reductive.  Plus, I personally don't think I have that much in common with Rabbi Fineman or Dr. Ira Goldfarb, DDS.

And then I got an email from LinkedIn today.  With the subject line "Russell, Austin Diaper Bank is looking for candidates like you."

Intrigued, I clicked the link.  Intrigued both because there is something called a "Diaper Bank" and because LinkedIn thought I might be a good fit for their job opening.  Which turned out to be an intern position.

I put into LinkedIn my transcripts, blood type, ranked order of favorite Harry Potter books, bank account information, and details of every job going back to Baskin Robbins when I was 15, and you think I might be a good candidate to be an intern at the Austin Diaper Bank?

And furthermore - what the fuck is a Diaper Bank?  I can maybe see the need for some place that gives out diapers, but no way in hell should one collect people's diapers, loan them out to others, and provide diaper interest.  That is a terrible idea.

But LinkedIn was not finished.  It had a full list of jobs it thought I would be perfect for:
Volunteer English teacher in Brazil
Trauma Sales Rep for Stryker
Producer, Time Warner Cable News
R&D Software Engineer Summer Intern, Teradata
Marketing Strategy Director, Dell
Non-Profit Package Underwriter, USLI
Co-Manager, Hobby Lobby

You see what all of these jobs have in common? Nothing.  That's not true.  They all have absolutely nothing to do with my education, job experience, or interests. So they have that in common. One of them has the word "non-profit" in it, but I am unclear what a non-profit "package" is, or how one underwrites it.  Sounds like ill-advised porn.

Side note - in case you were wondering (and I was), the other co-manager at Hobby Lobby is in fact Jesus.

If we are to give up our privacy so that social media can mine our personal information to taylor marketing to our interests, they shouldn't suck at it.