Soooo… Weird
Never in our life had we, my wife and I, said gherkins, in a conversation. Weird.
But recently, my wife bought gherkins, said gherkins, we mentioned gherkins in conversations since.
Now, we are bombarded with t-shirts of cartoon gherkins… Wtf
Ive never seen a gherkin on a t shirt, so weird.
I’ve never had a gherkin stalker. 
But, I have all sorts of other stalkers. From lawn mowers to Pirate pants. 
It mostly happens when I look something up. Then it becomes the only thing the stalker thinks I want to see, hear, read about or hopefully buy. But, I also get them when I mention something. I’ll say Dragon for instance and voila! A new stalker 
I get ads for Dragon books, cups, movies, clothing, models, games, etc.
I’m not big into conspiracy stuff … but, our devices are listening. I don’t think they aren’t keeping a running script of our conversations but, I’m pretty sure they are programmed to pick up key words for a possible $$$ transaction for someone. As soon as it hears a key word that it can make a sale on, it comes to life and starts the ad barrage.
It’s off-putting to say the least.
Yeh technology is creeping me out these days 
You are having a conversation in your home, but Alexa is listening … 
Precisely why I won’t get one … even though I would love to have her turn off my lights LOL
Don’t have Alexa - pretty convinced it was the phones, I’ve gone through all the microphone permissions and turned them off now.
We were in the car, it’s completely freaked me out. I’ve heard it happening, but my first experience with it.
Was it a co-indicence? Am I now paranoid?
I have a couple of friends who have Alexa and Siri listening in on everything that’s said in their house. Occasionally, these gadgets think they’re being asked something and will speak up, which creeps me out. Their presence is like an Orwellian entity listening to every conversation. I doubt Google and Apple keep a record of it all, but it’s unsettling.
Sometimes, before going to bed, I’ll take a late-night walk around the neighborhood to relax. It sometimes occurs to me that I’m triggering dozens of doorbell cameras that record me walking past people’s houses.
So far, all this surveillance is largely benign. Even so, governments could easily use these kinds of ubiquitous watchers, listeners, and trackers to monitor their citizens’ thoughts and actions—China is a good example of where it’s already occurring to some extent.
A lot can be said about living in a cave.
Yeh but is the cave listening? Fist sign of madness is hearing voices, 2nd sign is replying 🫨
Ive been thinking for a while of ditching paying by card and going back to cash.
Bank cards track your every move, what you soend, where you spend and what you buy. How long will it be til you get targeted adverts based on NFC or Bluetooth or wifi as you walk through towns, airports etc.
Yeh I hear America wants to ban tik tok over it being owned in China in spying row. Crazy
Yep. It’s in the works to ban completely by forcing them to sell to an American to run the business. Cause’ then it will be on the up and up If they sell, it won’t be banned. If this thing passes, which it looks like it will. Tik Tok will have a year to sell or America won’t have access to it anymore. No one seems to give a two hoots about the massive amount of US citizens earning on that app.
But, then you go on Tik Tok and listen to everyone bitchin’ that their earnings are being cut and views are being suppressed. So, would it really make a difference if it were banned?
YouTube did the same thing. Gathered all sorts of content and the creators were making money hand over fist until it was figured out how YouTube could reign that in and get a bigger slice of the profits. Now someone new starting out on YT has little to no chance of ever reaching the millions of subscribers and raking in the $$$ that OG creators did.
As they say … the game is rigged.
But, yeah Tik Tok may be gone soon from the US Airwaves. I don’t care much one way or the other. I feel bad for those who are earning their living and have really good content, but there is soooo much garbage on there that everyone could easily live without
I believe some are migrating to YouTube and Instagram in preparation … but again. I doubt they will get half their audience back.
Yeh I never got the lure of tik tok or Instagram, or YouTube for that matter.
I barely use Facebook or Twitter, only have fake accounts to follow news on Twitter; and Facebook for local town group news.
I guess I don’t really get social media. I know people make a lot of money, how I don’t know, well I do know. But I don’t get the influencer… It’s very weird
Completely agree. I can’t figure out how some make it so big and others make next to nothing. There are a few Tik Tok Creators that are really funny with their animals and several savvy craft folks. I love watching them. But, they don’t have nearly the following or income of some 16 year old pranking people and dodging getting punched in the face. I could do without all that stuff. But, I guess it comes with the territory. I literally stumbled on someone who was screaming into the camera telling people how fat and ugly they are or how poor they look. She has over a million followers. I never blocked someone so fast For the most part my feed is all cats, crafts and food but every now and then some odd ball thing shows up.
As for YouTube, it’s like my TV. I don’t have cable. I watch a few things on there I really like. They have some great old movies for free and then my ever growing streaming subscriptions LOL … I might as well go back to cable at this point 