 Howdy, folks. Welcome back to CCTV. If you see the sunburn, just got back from spring break. We're here representing UVM, and we're going to talk to you about a bunch of different things, but I think the commoditization of entities on social media is something we're really interested in. How does that fit into either of your lives? So yeah, we really kind of focused on one aspect was going to be, you know, art and music, and how often, at least personally for me, a lot of times when I'll be scrolling on any sort of major platform like Instagram, Twitter, or I don't know, not really Facebook anymore, but we'll find that I think a lot of artists struggle to find their niche in such a saturated landscape, and as well, they might find that their content that they make might not be exactly what they want just because of the nature of how the algorithm functions and how it's really hard to get a hit on such a big platform like that. It's all about the algorithm. I feel as an artist myself who usually makes digital art or in that realm, the last thing I want to do is market myself, but I also want to show the world what I've created, and I think we're entering this new age where everything is so digitized and like so pre-picked in our media that I think it's hard to, for an artist, to kind of prioritize like marketing themself or commodifying themself, which is very different, but it definitely falls into so many different aspects, like sports, athletes too, or headed into March Madness at the big time. Yeah, very exciting time, especially for sports fans. It's one of the biggest sporting events of the year. I think it's kind of talking about commodifying, like with athletes it's like the opposite, like you kind of want to put yourself out there to get like brand deals, money, and like promote yourself so you can like get drafted higher, so I think it's kind of interesting with artists and like athletes, it's kind of like two different things. Yeah, how does music do you think play into that? Or as you as a listener, maybe not as a creator? I think it's super interesting, because I think it has like a good and a bad side, because I discovered so much like new music through Instagram Reels, for example, and then there's just one part of the song that gets picked up by the algorithm, and then everyone all of a sudden like knows the song, and it's super nice because you get to know like smaller bands, but then on the other hand I think it also like affects how we listen to stuff, and it's always about just getting the highlight, and then I only listen to that part of the song most of the time, and it's such a like different consuming music in a different way. It's not like listening to the whole album from beginning to end, but just one song, one part. Yeah, I was sitting on the plane yesterday, I don't know if you know the album, Depression Cherry, Beach House, but Space Song is like so oversaturated in media, and I like almost forgot that it was on the album because I always skip it, because I just you hear it so much, so yeah, I think it's good for like another thing is like a struggling artist, musician, whatever, like they'll be able to get themselves out there, but maybe that's not the the way they want to do it, or maybe that is the way they want to do it, but I think there's a line between making something for the love of the art or making something to make money. So for yourself do you feel like you feel more restricted with when you're trying to like put something out there by you know whatever's popular, or do you think that because it's such a you know open avenue that you feel like your creativity can be like more fostered in that kind of area? I think that comparison is often a losing battle, especially as an artist, where you're seeing so many things and it's hard to convince yourself that you're doing something unique, so in that regard one of the barriers for me making money off of something I create is that once that money starts paying the bills then it's hard to you know keep that spark for that creativity of life, but I don't know there are just so many different avenues and realms it's just an interesting topic. Yeah, it brings more questions. Yeah. Hi everyone my name is Camille and I'm here with Brooke and I'm Logan and today we're just going to be having a conversation about targeted ads that we see on social media. So what targeted ads do you guys see on social media? I use TikTok a lot and I don't know if TikTok thinks I have bad dental hygiene but I always get these oil pulling ads like all the time, so I don't know what they're trying to say about me, but yeah that's what I usually get. Yeah it's interesting I feel like sometimes they know your hobby is a little too well. I'm a runner and I also consume a lot of energy drinks and for the last like six months I want to say I've never clicked on one, never searched for one, but I continually get these targeted cannabis infused energy drinks. Who knows why? I don't know, but yeah. I use Instagram quite often and I get quite a few New York Times ads for all the New York Times games and they're all like always animated and they're always within like the stories on Instagram and they're really easy to click by. How often do you guys see ads on Instagram or TikTok? I feel like it's like now it's like the majority of my content feels like it's an ad which seems crazy. Yeah we were having a discussion a little earlier about how now the ads aren't as obvious and they're kind of hidden within your feed and we spend so much time like scrolling through and we don't even notice when you're scrolling between stories that there's ads in between we're kind of just desensitized to all of it. And sometimes there's multiple ads within that one story and so it's just easy to click sure it's still not realized seeing multiple ads. Yeah I feel like that's the worst feeling is like you just start reading something just out of habit and then you like five minutes later you realize it's an ad and I just feel scammed. Do you guys think there's a problem with targeted ads or do you mind? I think at one point it definitely freaked me out but now I'm just almost like desensitized to it like we were talking about so I think it still does like freak me out sometimes when it's a very specific ad. Yeah I feel like I didn't I don't think about it much and like till we had this conversation but like I think also just like how like social media evolved in general is like you're it's like way beyond just your social group and it's like and now it's like even beyond that it's like into consumerism so it's it's weird because I feel like instead of getting like entertaining content it's like mostly just advertising. Yeah and I feel like the ads are mostly stuff that we don't even really need necessarily like and especially on TikTok they have this new like TikTok shop where each yeah yeah yeah um and they're disguised as a video you don't even know it's an ad and then there's like a small little thing at the bottom that says like ad yeah so it's kind of hard to tell and you kind of have to be aware of it. It's hard to tell if it's sponsored content or just someone making it because they like it. Yeah I feel like they're they're definitely walking like fine lines with like the laws around advertising and like admitting that it's advertising. Yeah it's scary to know that your phone is always listening to you and since seeing the ads about stuff that you talked about. Oh that's like it irks me. Yeah yeah well that's probably all we have time for today. It's all we have time for today thank you for listening to um our conversation about targeted ads on social media. Be aware of your content. Could be a hidden ad. What's up you guys I'm your targeted ad Trisha and welcome back to that bad targeted ad. Today we got three contestants all targeted ads we got a pickle a pickle kit ad spirited airlines and cheap ski apparel you're not supposed to know who is who so let's meet our contestants. Hi. Hi which targeted ad can you tell us a little bit of what targeted ad you are today. Well I am I'm super cheap let's start there twenty six dollars are you a college student do you have no money we can get you there anywhere actually anywhere you want to be twelve hour flight thirteen hour flight thirty minute flight and it all costs twenty six dollars but you only get one bag you can't chew gum on the plane and you may or may not have to take off your shoes and there might be a little hamster wheel in the back that you're running the plane yourself that's that's done right yeah are you a college student who's given up on their dreams of traveling and you don't have any money this is your girl she's going to be stalking you like crazy let's meet the next contestant do you like to try new things are you always up for a little adventure do you like to eat fun foods do you want to be a muckbanger have you ever wanted to do that we have deals five kids all you and your friends can try it it's a great deal salty sweet crunchy gooey everything you could want in your mouth it's amazing man i'm sold next up we're going to meet our last targeted ads so start making your decisions on who you think they are again we have spirited airlines pickle kits and bad uvm apparel ski apparel we'll just rock with this mic are you a uvm student that only came here because you like skiing probably because that's just about everyone here so as the season comes to a close the amazing season that we had i think it's uh it's time where you're starting to forget about the pain of the money you spent on your season pass and now you can spend some more money on new ski apparel so when you're skiing down the park and you see all those people with the super baggy clothes that are four times too big if you're like me you're thinking i need some of those so i can get it for you 1299 plus a million shipping and handling and it's all yours you heard him folks if you didn't spend enough on the icon pass hill rob your bank account all right we got 130 seconds left with the show so now it's time to reveal who are our contestants you guys let's hold those signs up did you guess so i'm your targeted ad trisha i'm talking to you guys about your bad targeted ads on that bad targeted ad that's the show um check us out next week when we have diet pills what else we got bad targeted ads farmers markets tinder maybe and some diet pills so check us out next week and signing off that that's your targeted bad targeted ad trisha hey guys welcome to our burlington foodie chat um so what do you guys like to eat for dinner well especially in burlington my favorite place is deadless wine bar if you know you know it's the best place in all of the world they do oh god they do wine tastings every thursday they have charcuterie they have fresh pasta their menu changes seasonally based on what's fresh in the area 10 out of 10 recommend i'm gonna just have to try that place never meant to go never been i've never been either but do you guys have favorite restaurants or dinners well for me personally i love to cook a good curry so when i don't feel like cooking a good curry i have to get it delivered from red panda a very great place in south burlington probably the best curry i've had ever what kind of ever yeah well that's a great question they have a couple different options but i'm a good classic red curry classic curry red curry at home i do yes yeah that's pretty good is it good yeah i would say nice i'm good um i love jersey mikes i would say jersey mikes is probably my favorite place to eat um i could have a breakfast lunch and dinner um um what else is good in burlington yeah i work at flatbread so if anyone wants to come and get pizza that's pretty good i wouldn't go there probably if i wasn't working yep but for free pizza it's pretty good i used to work at friendly toast yeah if you're in the mood for some day drinking some morning drinking some bloody marriage you know where to go yeah um lots of good flights maybe iced coffee flight mimosa flight i don't know why i'm getting them free advertisement i'm not even paying you anymore nope not anymore nope what's the work environment like there um it was pretty good um a little corporatey um see that but it was pretty good the people there are really nice i'm not my lovely boyfriend there um but yeah don't work there anymore knock knock don't want to work there anymore so it's real i work at nectar's food there is um yeah okay but it's not known for its food i'll just say yeah yeah and we really only serve on thursday nights for trivia but if you want to come test your knowledge at some trivia then i also don't know but thursday's trivia night i'll be there serving yeah where do you guys work nowhere i'm a student that's my job yeah that's me right now i'm trying to find a job that's what i have to stop that was a great conversation guys flatbread is good if you want pizza or beer um there's a lot of good places in burlington that's who conclusion there's a lot of good spots to eat in burlington yeah thank you come again