← How does the algorithm see you?
▮ Algorithm Profile
🫥 The Lurker
You watch everything, post nothing — a quiet, well-mapped, very legible user.
6.5% of people get this profile
est.
Estimated ad value
$1,460/yr
≈ $122/mo · the average US person is ~$1,327/yr
You haven't posted since 2019, and even that was a photo of a sunset you immediately regretted. But make no mistake: silence is not invisibility. You read every comment section, you watch full videos, you click the links — you just never leave a public trace. The thing is, the algorithm doesn't care what you say. It cares what you do, and you do a lot. Your watch time, your dwell, the topics you can't stop reading about — all of it builds a profile sharper than any of your loud friends'. You think lurking keeps you safe. It mostly just makes you predictable: a fully-mapped user who gives the model clean, uncontaminated data with no performative noise.
How platforms label you
Clean Behavioral Profile
Without posts to muddy the picture, your passive signals (watch time, dwell, clicks) form an unusually clear read on your real interests.
Predictable Consumption
Lurkers are stable, habitual users — easy to forecast, which makes you a reliable, well-understood unit of attention to sell.
The realityMost of what a platform knows about you isn't what you post — it's the passive signals: what you watch, how long you pause, and what you scroll past.
Take back some controlPeriodically clear your watch/search history on the platforms you lurk on. Those passive histories are the backbone of your profile — and most people never touch them.
Why silence doesn't make you invisible
Platforms care far more about what you do than what you say. Watch time, dwell, scroll speed, and what you read but never react to all build a profile — often a cleaner one than for users who post constantly, because there's no performative noise to filter out.
Is this you? Find out for sure —
For education and entertainment only. The "ad value" figure is a rough, illustrative estimate built from public industry averages (e.g. US per-capita digital ad spend), not a calculation of your real data or a price anyone is paying for you. The personality types describe general patterns in how online platforms profile behavior — they are not a measurement of you specifically, financial advice, or a privacy audit. Provided as-is.