Amazon's Demographic of One

I, like everyone else these days, am in a demographic.

I am 24 or so, I like T-shirts from Giant Robot Magazine, I'd rather have a glass of water than a cup of piss-poor beer, no matter how well advertised, and I like ultra high-cocoa-content chocolate. I get my news off the Internet, I own a PDA, and I have opinions about hair products.

Yet I still consider myself an individual. I insulate myself with what I consider to be somewhat irregular notions, and feel that more or less I can make my own decisions. Most of the time.

I regularly train in the art of killing someone with a sword. I am enrolled in Life Drawing and Perl Programming simultaneously. I think Jujubes are the ultimate candy, and that the best five dollars I've ever spent were the ones I flushed down the toilet. When a drunk girl yells "Oh, MY TITS FELL OUT OF MY DRESS!" I will look away, instead of toward.

So when I see shows like "Fear Factor" and "Survivor" still exist, while shows like "Freaks & Geeks" and "Futurama" are pulled mercilessly, I wince. When a newspaper whose sole purpose is to be "hip with the kids" is basically just a rectangular insult made of woodpulp, I wince. When I see that other fellow college students rioted and destroyed the coolest liquor store in town, while in a drunken mob, I wince. My demographic has done me a disservice, and there is little I can do about it.

But I love shopping at Amazon.

Please don't wince.

Amazon has a colossal database of information, culled from all its buyers, assembled into what I assume must be some huge Master Control-like computer. When I buy something at Amazon, it looks at my purchases and cross-references them with everyone else who has purchased anything else I've purchased. The more purchasing similarities, the higher I am ranked with this other shopping partner-in-crime.

Amazon also looks to see if this kindred-consumer has made any purchases I haven't. And it probably compares this purchase with even more consumers, to further validate its interest to me. I'm sure it all gets very complicated, but the end result is that I log in, and I see a page that recommends a book on Bushido, the Seven Samurai DVD, Lego Mindstorms, and an Autechre CDs I hadn't heard of.

It's not perfect (as it turns out, it may not be completely automated, either). But it really gets uncanny. More often than not, at this point, Amazon will ask me about something that either sounds really cool, or try and sell me something I already own. Amazon will never ask me to subscribe to Maxim. Amazon will never tell me to buy "The Red Tent."

And I can actively contribute. I can write a review of a stupid Lego set or dig in and tell Amazon that under no circumstances will I buy a Puff Daddy CD (even Master Control can make mistakes).

Yes I'm a demographic. But with this kind of technology, I'm a demographic of one. And I can take responsibility for a demographic of one.

— Dan Norton (dan@flakmag.com)