Thwarting the Google-Eye
I have pretty much learned to disregard all the pop-up ads that litter the margins when I’m reading online. Sometimes they are too flashy to ignore completely, but I continue to make the effort—which is probably numbing my brain to essential fight or flight cues.
But there are some ads that anger me, completely inhibiting my ability to focus. Like the ad that sullied my cerebral matter one recent morning by insisting I could “jump-start my career” if I don these amazing new clothes that will shape my body and boost my breasts.
This is 2024! Are people still stuck in the mindset that women must be shapely to be successful? If you shave your legs and armpits, amplify your bosom, and cinch your waist, maybe you can make 80 cents on the dollar of a man’s salary. But if all you have to offer is a brain, don’t bother?
Maybe if men had to contort their bodies to claim success—in other words, if we leveled the playing field—we’d have a female president by now…
News Flash!—I was about to say that neither of the male presidential candidates looks particularly fit, although Biden looks like he at least makes the effort to stay in shape. And I was going to suggest that if either of these men had to submit to the pits & legs scraper, the waist pincher, and the boob booster, they both would have resigned their candidacy by now. But my iPhone announced Biden steps aside and grants Kamala Harris his support for president of the United States!
Way to go Joe! Maybe she can put an end to this nonsense. Without breast enlargement, a tummy tuck, or the new googly career boosting outfit.
I can’t believe we still fight this battle—and that there exist women who think it’s a good idea to return to the days from whence this came. After the recent attempt on Donald Trump’s life, some folks have publicly claimed that the only reason the shooter was able to get any traction is because there were women on the security team—and, of course, the director of the U.S. Secret Service is female. Were there any truth whatsoever to this claim—which I cannot fathom—I’d suggest society ought to allow these women to be uncinched, unboosted, and unshaven without being ostracized, so they could just get on with the business at hand.
But I digress. The truth is, I’m grateful that I’ve thwarted the all-seeing eye of the internet, intent on targeting ad campaigns to specific demographics in effort to make the rich richer and the poor poorer. Clearly it missed its mark with me. I get some pleasure when that happens.
For a brief season, based on the ads littering my laptop margins, the google–eye seemed to think I was an African American gay man. I am, in fact, a heterosexual, white woman. It was probably due to my Netflix consumption at the time. It gave me a good laugh.
Lately, I am deluged with ads from financial advisors, e-trade offerings, and high-end vacation getaways. Ha ha ha ha ha ha. Talk about barking up the wrong tree!
I still peruse the internet for places I might like to live before I die, with a keen consideration for affordability, politics I can stomach—and a walk on the beach. I guess this is why the eye wants me to go on a frilly vacation.
But maybe I’ll forgo the moving and focus, instead, on the election of our first female president, in hopes it will give the Billionaire boobs an attitude adjustment.