Slashdot Mirror
Why Gay Men Are Worth So Much To Facebook
Barence writes "PC Pro has a feature on how social networks sold your privacy, which includes some interesting comparisons on the value of different demographics to Facebook. For example, an advert that targets everyone within a 10-mile radius of a medium-sized British town (Dorking) is valued at 28p per click by Facebook's advertising tool. However, targeting single gay men in the area with a preference for nightclubbing raises the price to 71p per click — 2.5x the price of targeting the general public. Such precise targeting also raises other issues. Whittling down ads to target such precise demographics can result in ads targeting as few as 20 people, making it theoretically possible to identify those targeted. 'I think the worst scenario might be where someone who hates gays uses Facebook's targeting to identify gay users and later attack them,' says Paul Francis, scientific director of the Max Planck Institute for Software Systems."
Why would anyone be against shemales? They know best how to give head while at least superficially looking like females ;-)
Ahhh...the great dumpster continuum. Many a free computer will be found there. -- sowth (748135)
Paul Francis, uh, "scientific" director of the Max Planck Institute for Software Systems, has figured out that if I choose to declare that I'm gay on my public Failbook profile, then people can use that information to determine my sexuality?
Whoa, that's some cutting edge research there. Thanks for looking out for me, Paul.
If you were blocking sigs, you wouldn't have to read this.
Page 3 before gay men are even mentioned and that's the headline? I'm not even going to bother making an on topic post.
Give me Classic Slashdot or give me death!
The gay's tend not to have kids. That means that they have more discretionary income. More discretionary income equates to more readily purchasing more expensive toys more often than the guy that supports a family. It's why you see shiny things like the latest Itoy so often in the hands of gay people, they can afford them. It's just math and the logic is sound.
The second part though, the idea that someone would go to all the trouble to use something like this to track down a bunch of gays is absurd. Why bother doing that when if your a nutter you just go to your local gay bar instead? You know the one that advertises to attract all of those gays?
Don't want to be targeted? Don't use Facebook.
Will it also include all the deeply-closeted homosexuals who always seem to be the most vocal gay-bashers in any given group? Because I'm thinking that if someone like Ted Haggard sees his own house on the list, it may actually result in a helpful moment of epiphany.
What political party do you join when you don't like Bible-thumpers *or* hippies?
You'll have to excuse Slashdot, you have to understand that to many of us a shemale is uncomfortably close to a transporter accident, so it's bothering us at a primal geek level.
"There is more worth loving than we have strength to love." - Brian Jay Stanley
While Homosexuality gets a lot of discrimination and hate... For the most part they are living an above average standard of life, so they have money, so advertising targeted towards them is valuable.
It comes down to a group that doesn't quite fit in well with the general public and Adds saying We will welcome you to come to our location where you won't feel like an outcast. So Advertising targeted to that group is far more effective... Thus costs more.
Many Other Minorities don't work as well.
Minority Races - for the most part the have a lower then average salary. That means most of the people will be less likely to spend money.
Non-Christians - For the religious non-Christians they have their places of worship where they feel like they belong. For Atheists for most places they go they are able to pass as a normal citizen. And if their religion doesn't have much of a dress requirement they are normally able to pass off anyways. For some of the real minorities the numbers are too small to advertise for.
If something is so important that you feel the need to post it on the internet... It probably isn't that important.
For example, an advert that targets everyone within a 10-mile radius of a medium-sized British town (Dorking) is valued at 28p per click by Facebook's advertising tool. However, targeting single gay men in the area with a preference for nightclubbing raises the price to 71p per click
That typically means young and single, which has always been a very attractive market with a lot of disposable time and money. Can we get a comparison to straight people with a preference to nightclubbing? Of course a blanket ad trying to sell to everyone is worth far far less...
Live today, because you never know what tomorrow brings
All companies care about is advertising turning into real sales. Gay guys are likely closer to females in terms of frequent frivolous spending, i.e. spending on clothing and other accessories. Not that guys necessarily spend less, but their spending is more focused and comes in bigger chunks at less frequent intervals. Also, gay guys, like women, are more fashion and image conscious which means they'll buy into fads more readily and willfully overpay for products they fund appealing. The invention of the metrosexual was an attempt to bring that same mindset to straight men. I'd say it's met with some success, but it's certainly not as reliable as other demographics.
The interest in Facebook is obvious; targeted advertising. The ultimate goal for any company in the consumer space is that we all turn into consumer whores; gender or sexual orientation is irrelevant unless a particular demographic shows increased inclination to spend.
You're the product, not the customer. And products don't get to complain about privacy, they're products!
I knew something was odd about that add for a Gay Male who finished school in '95 in the small town of Skibbereen working as a barista in Starbucks in Blackrock, with horn rim glasses and wearing a hoodie currently typing on ... aaaarrrrgggggggggg
While I'm not sure what part of the world you're in, I know that a large portion of the slashdot readership resides in the USA. And here (possibly other places, but I can only reliably talk about here), male-to-female transsexuals are generally offended by the term "shemale". They seem to prefer either "trans-women", "MtF" or just "women". That may explain your -1 troll.
That said, it seems humorous to complain about how trans-erasure has kept people from acknowledging male-to-female transsexuals while also ignoring female-to-male transsexuals. At least trans-women are noticed because they are sexualized - trans-men seem almost wholly ignored in the populace.
But to answer your question more directly, the reason nobody talked about them in *this* article is because they are not a lucrative target market for advertisements. The homosexual male community is not targeted for advertisement because they are so numerous, but because the retail and marketing world believes that gay males spend a lot of money and, more importantly, influence the fashions and tastes of the heterosexual people surrounding them. Clothing stores see gay men as trend setters, so they believe that getting gay men to adopt their clothes will lead the heterosexual people to follow. Because of rampant discrimination and erasure, trans people are not perceived as having the same trend-setting appeal.
... I said "GAMING"! I said we needed more GAMING on Facebook, not gay men!
Signed, MZ.
I think the "sex with 'her'" is the problem.
Do you even lift?
These aren't the 'roids you're looking for.
While this was trollish, it touches on a valid point: it's not the gay demographic that's worth so much, it's any narrowly targeted regional demographic. The summary is worded as if gay men were the focus of the article, but it's just a single example culled out of a four-page article.
"Dear Pot,
What you find attractive is an abhorrent abomination in God's sight. What I find attractive is objectively beautiful, and in no way subject to my own tastes, preferences, and biases.
Also, while I'm no queer, I do have some faggot friends, so I think this qualifies me to speak as an expert on gay stuff.
No homo!
Sincerely, Kettle."
You like girls. He likes trans-women. On an individual basis, I'd be perfectly inclined to grant him the point that some "ladyboys" are "way more cuter" than some "actual females" - I've been to Wal Mart, and I'm here to tell you, possessing a vagina is no guarantee you won't grow up to be an uggo. I've also seen Maury Povich and Jerry Springer, and know that sometimes, the only remark any of us would make on seeing a transgendered woman walking down the street would be, "Damn, what a cutie," because you wouldn't think they're transgendered, because they really are that passable.
The only thing making ladyboys "way more cuter" than actual females is your fetish for them.
No amount of surgery makes them look like actual females without extensive makeup and photo angles taken to compliment a feature or to exaggerate one.
I say this as someone who is not against gays or transgender people. In fact, I have many LGBT friends and even some in the family... so it's not a bias, just stating what I see. I guess much the same way you are, but your fetish is clouding your eyesight.
I can personally say that this is not true. Not based on some images on the internet, but real life experience. Granted, I do live in Thailand and the ladyboys here are generally more feminine and look more like women than in western countries, but the point stands. Of course, there are also many that don't really pass that, but then there are those true gems too. Just last week I met one ladyboy who I sure as hell wouldn't had recognized as such if it weren't for the established I was at.
It has nothing to do with general fetish towards ladyboys. For the most part they don't interest me that much. Which of course is true for many "real" women too. However, she had spent the time and effort to make herself look beautiful and she really was. Sat down, had a few drinks, kissed some, went back to apartment and had some fun. Her "special" parts didn't matter, and why would they. I know geeks like to put everything into binary code and either 0 or 1, but in real life it's not that simple. And no, I'm not gay - I just don't discriminate ladyboys just for the fact that they have at one time been men. It's stupid to limit yourself like that if you otherwise like someone or think she looks nice.
Actually, in general, the trans community (US) wants nothing to do with such people, they are pretty ostracized and many trans peeps consider their very mention (not by just term, but their existence) to be offensive.. so they are generally not welcome under the 'transgendered' umbrella.
Well, well. It looks like gay people are only human after all. They have the same kind of prejudices and hypocrisy as the rest of us. I hear that gay people also attack men who identify themselves as bi-sexual too.
As an outsider looking in, I find the entire thing to be quite amusing. Perhaps the gay people should get their own house in order before they start attacking society in general demanding special rights and treatment.
Jesus was a compassionate social conservative who called individuals to sin no more.
Actually, most of the trans people I know don't have a problem with drag/ladyboys.... "shemales" is a different story... that's offensive because it's specifically tied to sexual fetishism, but drag and ladyboys are performance. Transsexualism isn't performance, it's real, and outside of people who are just beginning their "real life experience" period, I don't know any trans people who have a problem with the idea of drag. They don't like to be identified as it (because they aren't), but they can accept it as a different concept.
That being said, there's a whole lot more to "transgendered" than transsexualism. Genderqueer, people who simply refuse to associate with either specific gender, androgynous culture, etc., all fit within the umbrella term.
And yes, I do know several transgendered individuals, some of whom are also transsexual. It comes from my volunteer work with the local queer community center.
Also worth noting... historically treatment for transgender issues was restricted by a (now debunked) theory that very narrowly defined what could be accepted as "trans". That created an inaccurate skew in terms of the sexuality... in Canada, for example, until the last couple of years it was impossible for somebody who identified as homosexual to get gender reassignment therapy. If you were a transwoman, you, by definition, had to like men exclusively, sexually. That has changed, and a very large number of "gay" trans people have come out of the woodwork and are now seeking therapy. I would expect that when the dust settles it'll be somewhere between 1/3 and 1/2 of trans people who are homosexual.
Everybody looks down on someone. I try to be egalitarian and look down on all of you equally.
I am TheRaven on Soylent News
Yeah it's all fun and games until you see that she has a dick, and yours goes soft instantly, and then feels like it's retracting into your body. Well, that's how it works for me and most guys who call themselves straight anyways. There's a reason guys prank each other with galleries of "hot women" who are revealed to have a dick in the final pic.
And do you have a real life experience of this, or are you basing it on someone surprising you with such image on the internet? Because in real life it is quite different. I used to think just like that, and still somewhat do, but it only applies to internet. In real world, not so much, if the "girl" is nice looking.
Your tone when talking about them would certainly call that statement into question.
All you have "proven" is that you have some friends who you don't feel are passable. From that, you have generalized to the assertion that "no transgendered person is passable as the opposite sex, and the only reason somebody would find them attractive is a fetish." Pointing out the obvious transgendered person at a gay pride parade doesn't prove your point, either.
And for what it's worth, I'm sure your attitude that "they do NOT look like the sex they feel they look like, they either look like men in drag or women in drag," is in no way contributory to your so-called friends feeling that "constant voice in the back of their head, telling them they aren't female or male enough yet," either. I mean, with "friends" like you eager to point out that nobody could ever find them attractive, or could only find them attractive as the object of a sick fetish, how could they not be happy with the results of their transition?
Yep, you get that basic effect in most minority groups.. people within the group trying to associate themselves with the mainstream by demonstrating that they hate the same people the 'normal' people do, or being able to point to others saying 'see, we are not perverts, THEY are the real ones! we are normal just like you!'.
This has, unfortunately, become a real problem with the gay right's movement over the last two decades, which often puts me in a rather uncomfortable position of supporting their cause yet not wanting to support the professional activists/groups due to their attacks on groups they want to cast off now that they have some power....
I see many who feel 'ladyboy' and 'newhalf' are just as offensive as 'shemale', essentially leaving the trans community with no non-offensive (english) word for such people, which I tend to interpret as their existence being offensive.
I suppose. In truth, I live in a country that's generally fairly open to it (still have our fair share of stupid, mind you), and in a city that's especially open to it. There's still a number of people for whom it's automatically a bad thing, and I don't think we'll ever reach a day when guys who think that getting aroused when looking at an attractive transwoman makes them gay will be gone, but things are getting better. Slowly but surely, things are improving for trans people, and I'm seeing it first hand, because I'm working directly in community outreach and education. (as recently as yesterday, I taught a seminar for a federal government department on how to create safer spaces and use inclusive language for the queer community). I don't really live in the part of the world where terms like "ladyboy" or "newhalf" are used commonly, though.
It might be an element of the groups I have dealt with, who tend to be pretty big on the 'gender binary' concept, so things like genderqueer/adrogynous/etc are attacked as hurting the absolutism they seek. Very similar to the attacks I see from gays against bi peeps since they see bisexually somehow underpinning both their normalcy and genetic argument. On the trans end it often seems to come down to clinging to the imagery of it being a simple birth defect, and thus there are still only two sexes and they simply have a correction to make.. anything inbetween threatens this idea.
You have a point... again, because I work on community education, I have a very good background in gender theory (have lectured on the subject at the local university). I can see how people would want to cling to the binary, but it's an idea that doesn't make a lot of sense to me, and never really has. Binaries don't actually exist in nature, and in every way that we, as humans, have ever sought to define sex, there's variation beyond a simple A or B selection. I have never seen any reason to believe that gender isn't equally fluid, and I don't really see how that understanding is incompatible with the idea of transsexualism/transgenderism. It's a spectrum, just like sexual orientation and physical sex. Even if you are one of the folks who says that it's a birth defect, I don't really see how that's incompatible with the idea that there's a C - All of the Above, or D - None of the Above option. If you identify as the "opposite" end of the spectrum from what your physical body presents, and feel that you need to change the body, then who cares what the person across the street feels about their body? It's a deeply personal thing that shouldn't in any way be affected by what other people do with their lives.
I think the problem is that people, in general, have the notion that gender and sex are tied to each other. We're *finally* getting people to accept that sex and sexuality are not inexorably linked, but it seems an extremely difficult concept for some people to wrap their heads around that gender is also independant.