Why Are There So Many Goats on Facebook?

My mother was one of the first in her family to graduate college, and went on to get her master’s in biology. She took calculus for fun one summer. This is the kind of person we are dealing with.

Tonight, she has been doing cryptograms, where you have to decipher the code to figure out which letter is what and eventually spell out a phrase. She is very entertained by this and it keeps her busy now that her “Extremely Hard Sudoku” book is running low. Don’t worry, I have backups in my drawer of “presents to dole out to Mom to keep her entertained at home.” But I don’t tell her this. I just give her a hard time and say, “Well, Mom, when you run out of logic problems, I can just give you GMAT practice tests and you can do those for fun.”

“Oh yes, I would probably like those,” she exclaims, without a hint of irony.

My mom was a scientist at NIH, and then taught herself to code and was a female coder in the ’60s, which is pretty rad. My parents built one of the first personal computers, at home on our dining room table, because they wanted to write software, but somebody needed to build the hardware first and no one had, so they did. When I was a child, they were leading their generation in computer literacy, but by the time I was a teenager, they started distrusting these new-fangled gadgets and basically went AWOL about the time AOL came online and it’s been downhill from there.

I have finally taught my mom how to use Facebook. Somewhat. Occasionally she will still complain about me loudly on someone’s wall—“She never brings me any desserts!”—thinking it is a private conversation, but you can’t win them all. Ironically, I work in marketing and advertising, and predominately across social media. I have insight into just how creepy the world is, and how if you have a conversation about something you need, an ad for it will miraculously appear shortly after. My mother does not understand this concept. I have tried to explain but it always goes awry.

Mom: Why are there so many goats on Facebook? Are you seeing all these goats?

Me: No, Mom, I’m not seeing goats on Facebook.

Mom: Why do I have to see all the goats? How come you don’t see goats?

Me: Because I am seeing news, clothing, and aging beauty recommendations.

Mom: But no goats?

Me: No goats. It’s going to try to serve you content it thinks you will like…

Mom: But I don’t like goats!

Me: Ok, but did you ever see a goat video you did like and click on it by chance?

Mom: No! Oh yes. Oh, there was this one, they were all in little pajamas and they were juuump-ing all over the place. Oh, it was just adorable, let me see if I can find it.

And then she begins scrolling the depths of Facebook, in an attempt to get back far enough, as if Facebook is a Kerouac novel written from beginning to end with no changes. Does she think I just skipped the goats pages? I try to explain:

Me: Ok, well, that is why you are seeing goats. Because you clicked on or searched for a goat video and your cookies…

Mom (cuts me off without looking up): But I don’t have any cookies! You never bring me cookies! (I do all her grocery shopping.)

Me: No, it’s virtual cookies. Think of it like little bread crumbs that leave a trail of everywhere you have been.

Mom: Also, I am almost out of bread. (She sighs, still searching for the video.)

I give up on the lesson, switch to my phone, type “goats in pajamas jumping” into YouTube, and we watch that and a few other goat-related videos.

Mom: See, you found it! You also have goats on Facebook.

Me (under my breath): I didn’t, but I do now…

*Thank you to Sunflower Farm for the hilarious “goats in pajamas jumping” video. If you have not seen it, check it out. Also, it turns out that friends have done Goat Yoga there and bought cheese. Another reminder that the world is wonderful and small.