LANSING, MI—Disgust and confusion gripped Peter Frederickson, 27, when he opened his laptop on Thursday evening and commenced an online shopping enterprise, "to get a jump on Christmas." Sitting in the dim light of a living room lamp, he opened his browser to eBay to search for a few items, only to discover an assortment of hair removal cream, artificial nails, and feminine hygiene products waiting in his recommended items list. "Initially I thought 'eww, that stuff is disgusting!', and then I started to wonder why the [expletive] I'm seeing it, and in my recommended stuff no less," reports Frederickson.
Flabbergasted, he pulled up all of the recent purchases listed under his account, searching for the catalyst of unmanly items shadowing his feed of recommended products. Following such items as a screwdriver set and as-yet-unopened protein powder, an order consisting of three dresses, perfume, two sports bras, and artificial nails lies emblazoned permanently in his account history. "I don't know where this came from, but I... I'm going to be haunted by this for the rest of my life, aren't I?" lamented Frederickson, numbly staring into nothingness. "This is permanently linked to my account. Sure, there might be days when I forget about how the internet thinks I might want to purchase face masks and tampons, and maybe some of my friends will never hear about this, but the fact will always remain that the internet believes I have the needs of a menstruating woman. Me!"
Using the past purchases and viewed items for an account as a starting point, eBay utilizes limited artificial intelligence in order to guess at what other products users would be interested in purchasing. eBay's CTO declined commenting, but an intern in their marketing department ̶w̶h̶o̶s̶e̶ ̶n̶a̶m̶e̶ ̶w̶e̶ ̶d̶i̶d̶n̶'̶t̶ ̶q̶u̶i̶t̶e̶ ̶c̶a̶t̶c̶h̶,̶ ̶b̶u̶t̶ ̶i̶t̶ ̶w̶a̶s̶ ̶t̶o̶o̶ ̶l̶a̶t̶e̶ ̶t̶o̶ ̶a̶s̶k̶ who wishes to remain anonymous notes that "it's really not that complicated; I think [our code] takes the last few things somebody orders and just recommends those again, along with maybe something related or, like, something that is usually bought at the same time as whatever got bought before. Not really my area of expertise though, and I honestly don't care how it works."
Kelsi Broadhead, 24, admits to making a number of purchases using her boyfriend's accounts, including eBay and Amazon. "Yeah, I used Pete[r Ferguson]'s stuff because I didn't want to log him out to use mine, plus he has prime and I like getting the faster shipping. I wouldn't care if he ordered power tools or cologne or whatever under my account, so I didn't think I needed to ask."
As of press time, Frederickson has purchased 23 sports jerseys, three band saws, two ratchet sets, and a full rack of dumbbells in an attempt to "restore balance to life."
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