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Ridiculously targeted t-shirt ads on Facebook are actually a thing, but probably not for privacy awareness purposes: https://thehustle.co/who-makes-those-insane

Ridiculously targeted t-shirt ads on Facebook are actually a thing, but probably not for privacy awareness purposes: https://thehustle.co/who-makes-those-insanely-specific-t-shirts-on-the-internet/ https://thehustle.co/who-makes-those-insanely-specific-t-shi...

sharkweek 5y ago
This article got dark very fast
- rootusrootus 5y ago
  Even without seeing the result, it was entirely predictable what was going to happen when someone let a computer generate phrases from word lists. The guy who went out of business generated 700 different combos algorithmically and then did not proofread them. That seems absurd. 700 isn't really that many, a few hours of manual labor to cull the bad ones, and his business may have made money.
  - schoen 5y ago
    I think other people have made money successfully with the few hours of manual labor version. At least, I think I've seen their customized products continue to exist and be available...
  - fzzzy 5y ago
    Where did you get the number 700? The article says they had 22 million shirts
    - dorkwood 5y ago
      From the article: "In the end, he generated about 700 variations of the phrase on t-shirts, and put them up on Amazon."
      - crtasm 5y ago
        700 "Keep Calm and ___" shirts, they also generated 22 million "___ a ___ who ___ and __ " style ones for their catalog and listed 550k of them on Amazon.
        rootusrootus 5y ago
        All of the examples shown in the article were of the "keep calm and ___" variety. With 550K more in the catalog, I imagine there were plenty of wild ones.
        tornato7 5y ago
        With four options he may have only had to check a few hundred words. 68^4 ~= 22 million
oplav 5y ago
https://www.reddit.com/r/TargetedShirts https://www.reddit.com/r/TargetedShirts
kingsuper20 5y ago
I really really like those cell phone cases.
- fzzzy 5y ago
  They made me laugh out loud for a few minutes. Did anybody actually buy those? There has to be someone with the right sense of humor.

sharkweek 5y ago

This article got dark very fast

rootusrootus 5y ago
Even without seeing the result, it was entirely predictable what was going to happen when someone let a computer generate phrases from word lists. The guy who went out of business generated 700 different combos algorithmically and then did not proofread them. That seems absurd. 700 isn't really that many, a few hours of manual labor to cull the bad ones, and his business may have made money.
- schoen 5y ago
  I think other people have made money successfully with the few hours of manual labor version. At least, I think I've seen their customized products continue to exist and be available...
- fzzzy 5y ago
  Where did you get the number 700? The article says they had 22 million shirts
  - dorkwood 5y ago
    From the article: "In the end, he generated about 700 variations of the phrase on t-shirts, and put them up on Amazon."
    - crtasm 5y ago
      700 "Keep Calm and ___" shirts, they also generated 22 million "___ a ___ who ___ and __ " style ones for their catalog and listed 550k of them on Amazon.
      - rootusrootus 5y ago
        All of the examples shown in the article were of the "keep calm and ___" variety. With 550K more in the catalog, I imagine there were plenty of wild ones.
      - tornato7 5y ago
        With four options he may have only had to check a few hundred words. 68^4 ~= 22 million

oplav 5y ago

https://www.reddit.com/r/TargetedShirts https://www.reddit.com/r/TargetedShirts

kingsuper20 5y ago

I really really like those cell phone cases.

fzzzy 5y ago
They made me laugh out loud for a few minutes. Did anybody actually buy those? There has to be someone with the right sense of humor.