I’ve developed a morbid fascination with social media algorithms.

I’ve long since accepted that Google is monitoring my every utterance and bombarding me with adverts for anything I may (or may not) have even a passing interest in, as long as it was discussed within a three-metre radius of my phone. The minute I buy something online, that same product from exactly same store begins haunting my feed for weeks. I try to reason with the bots. I’ve bought the toaster. I do not need a second toaster. But they don’t listen. Sigh. They never do.

Lately, however, the algorithm has taken a turn for the unhinged. Several suggestions flung in my direction have been not just irrelevant, but downright insulting. Apparently, I need to meditate to regain my youth, move into a retirement village, and consider taking up glass fruit cutting as a pastime. Also (and this was news to me) hobby horse dressage is a real and serious sport. The algorithm told me so, and it’s very insistent about it, and it clearly believes that when I scroll through any platform I should be exposed to this repeatedly. I'm not sure what's worse - the fact that this was suggested for me, or the fact that I clicked on it!

But nothing could have prepared me for last night, while I was aimlessly rotting my brain with short-form content on YouTube. A video popped up with the horrifying title: What would happen if every person in the world cut their toenails at once and dropped them into the sea?

At first, I was outraged. Why is this in my feed? I thought, deeply offended. And then, with dawning horror, I realised that part of me actually wanted to know. From never once, not even fleetingly, wondering about global toenail logistics, I suddenly found myself desperate to find out. I wanted graphs. I wanted scale. I wanted answers.

Spoiler alert: we’d end up with a floating island of toenail clippings big enough to walk on. I am both deeply fascinated and profoundly disturbed.

To make matters worse, I then leaned over and made my long-suffering husband watch it, too. Why I thought he’d find it any more relevant to his general sphere of interest than I did, I’ll never know. He sat through it in grim silence. We did not speak of it again. I’m still not sure he’s forgiven me. What haunts me most, however, is not the toenail archipelago. It’s the fact that I sat through the entire clip. Twice.

And this is how it begins.

The algorithm doesn’t need you to like the content. It just needs you to linger. One pause, one curious squint, and suddenly it’s “Here are five ways to upholster your couch using leftover potato sacks” and “Watch this woman make vegan bacon from banana peels while whispering affirmations into a fern.” Before you know it, you’re being served ads for foldable walking sticks and spiritual retreats that promise to reverse your biological age through artisanal moss therapy.

I have, without my consent, become the algorithm’s idea of myself.

What unsettles me most isn’t the randomness. It’s that it’s working. Somewhere in the depths of my psyche, I do want to know how many clippings it would take to build a landmass. I am weirdly comforted by cheese pulls and eerily efficient Japanese inventions. I’m ashamed to say I now have strong feelings on Mussolini’s opinions about pasta .

It’s a slippery slope from curiosity to compulsion. The algorithm doesn’t judge. It doesn’t ask, “Are you sure you want to watch this?” It simply extends a friendly digital hand and guides you deeper into an abyss of algorithmic absurdity, whispering, “People who watched this also enjoyed… a breakdown.”

And yet I return. I scroll. I gawk. I share. I am complicit.

The real issue is that algorithms no longer even pretend to distinguish between me and, say, a friend of a friend who once muttered something about herbal foot soaks near my phone. If it was said within Bluetooth range, it’s fair game. My device now assumes we are one deeply confusing person, living a contradictory life filled with meal prepping and conspiracy theories about product branding.

It has also given up trying to reconcile my actual age with my search history. Because I once Googled “how to fix a zip” and “quick dinner ideas for tired people,” it has concluded that I’m a 65-year-old minimalist who specialises in woodturning and seasons woks for emotional regulation. One moment of hesitation on a video about crocheting with spaghetti yarn, and boom, I’m down a rabbit hole of leprechaun drag queens, golf course maintenance, and ads for telescopic back scratchers.

The bots don’t ask what I want. They simply sniff the ambient data and make wild, unwavering assumptions. Honestly, if they know me that well, the least they could do is tell me what to cook for supper and which shoes to wear tomorrow.

So, here’s my formal apology:

To my husband, for forcing videos on him.

To my brain cells, for their loyal service, despite the things I watch.

And to my future self, who may very well find herself taste-testing army rations from around the world while wearing compression socks and explaining how toenail sedimentation could, in theory, support small-scale agriculture.

Until then, I remain your loyal correspondent from the outer limits of the internet. If you need me, I’ll be watching a tutorial on how to fold fitted sheets with military precision while quietly questioning every life choice I’ve ever made.