Math doesn’t get me at all

pinterest_mathAmazon totally missed the mark recently. I took it as a good sign.

This week I had one of those I completely suck at everything moments. Shockingly enough, it had to do with social media.

Also shockingly enough, I haven’t perfected the art of expressing sarcasm in writing. Just imagine that last sentence was dripping with it.

So, I was thinking hey, all my bloggy friends are raving about Pinterest, and how many readers they get from Pinterest. Maybe I should put some effort into Pinterest.

Pinterest, Pinterest, Pinterest.

I’ve written before about how Pinterest is conspiring with my inner Julia Child to ruin my self-esteem, so it’s not like Pinterest and I have gotten off on the right foot. This effort has the potential to end badly.

I actually have been posting my blog entries to my own Pinterest board and another couple of community boards. I do make an effort to put together images for my blog that I think will generate more interaction on Pinterest – based on all the latest information about how people use it.

I’m doing all the work, here, Pinterest.

At the same time, it turns out Facebook and its ironically faceless, heartless algorithm, may or may not be having an issue those cutely crafted images. Facebook might be tamping down my Pinterest-worthy posts in favor of everyone else’s images of kittens and puppies and marmots with toothbrushes.

Facebook and its algorithm think they can chalk the whole human experience up to math. The same brilliant Facebook algorithm lumps all business pages together and tamps them all down – all the writers and the nonprofits and the mom-and-pops with the Fords and the Hewlett Packards and the Exxon/Mobile – because to an algorithm we’re all the same. And we must pay for exposure.

So, as it turns out, just like in 9th grade algebra, math is ruining my damn day.

But I realized there’s a cool thing about Pinterest. It allows me to sort my stuff and search for it by image or by tag, instead of scrolling through the many, many posts with weird, non-descriptive titles that probably made me laugh at the time about how I was probably giving fits to all the silly search engine optimization thingies.

Yup. It’s hard to find stuff in my blog when I want to. So I realized this little Pinterest benefit this week as I was perusing my Pinterest board and seeing all the images I put out there as clues to what the blog entries were actually about. I thought Holy Dewey Decimal Battman, I can find all my stuff. Yippee! I’ve figured out what this Pinterest thing is good for.

So, I found the picture of the post I was looking for, for the blog entry I wanted, and I clicked on it.

And it just went to my site. Not to the specific post at all.

Because I’ve been doing it all wrong.

And it turns out I’ve been doing it wrong for a long time now, and never noticed it. And if I want to correct this problem, it’s a matter of going into hundreds of posts and pasting a new link for every single God-forsaken entry, on each one of the multiple boards I’ve been posting to every week for the past year or so.

No wonder Pinterest isn’t helping people find me. Following me on Pinterest is like going to the library for a specific book and having the librarian escort you to the place where all those cards are kept in little Barbie-sized drawers.

Oh, and the cards aren’t organized in any particular fashion.

Turns out I’m inadvertently organizing my online life just like I do with every hard copy filing system I’ve ever tried to maintain, in which every single piece of paper gets its own file.

Unless I get bored. Then I just leave the papers in a pile on the floor. The “to be filed” pile.

So if you’re big into Pinterest, and trying to figure out what the hell my problem is, what you’ve been doing, in effect, is wandering around in that useless and confusing and overwhelming library card file in my mind.

You should get out of my mind, by the way. That’s just creepy.

And that’s when I went to Amazon. Because when you’re having a pity party, you must go shopping. And Amazon game me a sign that everything was going to be all right. Amazon and their algorithm showed me their best guess at what they think I would be interested in looking at based on their mathematical whosacallit formula.

amazon

That’s right. Amazon thinks I’d like to peruse their selection of UFO detectors, tins of unicorn meat, books about random numbers and something about wood toilet seats in Greater China.

Oh, Amazon, you had me at unicorn meat.

Oh sorry. That was sarcasm too.

Anyway, that’s when I realized it’s okay if I messed up Pinterest. Because Amazon thinks I would be interested in Unicorn meat, which is just silly. Some of my best friends are unicorns. No matter what the occasion I have never had a hankering for unicorn meat.

I guess unless a unicorn zombie were to bite me, I don’t anticipate having such a hankering ever.

The upshot is this: if I don’t get the internet, at least it’s not getting me either. If nothing else, I have succeeded in being completely inscrutable to Amazon and its algorithm.

So take THAT, Math.

***

A vote for me isn’t necessarily a vote against math, if you’re into that sort of thing. It’s just mightily appreciated. Thank you.

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Oh, and if you’re all “but I love the math, it’s my favorite” feel free to rant in the comment section. I’ll listen.

And then I’ll probably make fun of you. This is just that kind of blog.

Photo by The Spectre Los

 

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  1. Thank you so much for making me laugh out loud and giving me a happier state of mind today!

    Yup, I\’m reading your blog at work. But seeing as I\’m putting in a zillion hours of real work every week, I gave myself permission for a fun break. Fun breaks make all the difference between a crappy day and a good one.

    Your blog is making it a good one today. This post is hysterical!

    1. You strike me as a very hard worker, Deborah. I\’m glad you give yourself a break once in a while, and happy to be a part of your day!

      You\’ve made mine as well. Thanks!

  2. I don\’t even want to know what you\’ve been searching on Amazon to give you THAT particular collection of suggestions. They apparently think you\’re a toilet seat salesman with some UFO friends who eat unicorns. Yikes!

  3. Now you have me wanting to see what they recommend based on my browsing history. I don\’t think it will be unicorn meat, though. That worries me less than the wood toilet seats in China. I mean, we could lose entire forests over that one . . . :).

  4. I needed this laugh in such a bad way today. My oldest son is turning 20 halfway across the United States from me, next week. My husband just had surgery to remove something that we had inserted a year ago to help him with his weird random old lady health issues. And we are not going to be with family for Thanksgiving. I am starting a new blog (it\’s my 12th one in 12 years) that I think I want to make a real \”go\” of and my head is swimming with all the Pinworthy pictures and Twitter parties and blah blah blah. My eyes have been leaking all day. You know the crying I am talking about. It just starts and you cant stop it. And you can\’t see, either. So, you made me laugh. Now, it is time for me to go to my soul-sucking-for-money-retail job.

    1. I do know the crying you are talking about. I don\’t know if it\’s the time of year or what, but I\’m there more often than not these days. Best of luck to your husband on his recovery, and happy birthday to your son!

      On your blog, my recommendation is to focus on the fun you have with it – the respite it gives you from your \”soul sucking job.\” I\’ve made so many mistakes, I should have given it up long ago, but it\’s my baby. Some days I go down the rabbit hole of social media and promotion, and my efforts aren\’t rewarded. It\’s just a guessing game, really. I just really want to write.

      I\’m glad you liked this post. Thanks for commenting!

  5. Oh math, you evil intangible Beelzebub you! I think we are related, except for that unicorn meat thing….
    And although comments are closed on the Little House on the Prairie post, I think you are wrong about Scarlet Fever, I\’m pretty sure it does cause blindness. Mary…duh! #keepmychildhoodalive!