Amazon's "About You" feature, launched in May, lets shoppers see the assumptions the retailer has made about them based on their purchase history. The feature gained attention last week when Threads user Megan Montgomery discovered Amazon believes she "has flat buttocks", prompting others to share their own verdicts, including "husband has skinny legs", "likes brunettes with muscles", "cusses when scared", "cannot keep real plants alive", "too short to reach into a 40in-deep box", and "treats cats as biological children". A TikTok user reported their page includes "has a bad father".
A well-deserved kind of bad
This development is "a well-deserved kind of bad", as shoppers have traded privacy for convenience. The author of this article, a Guardian columnist, checked her own page and found it deduced she "likely lives in York", "feeds wild birds consistently" (not in summer, she notes, following RSPB guidance), and "cycles recreationally" — the latter she disputes, attributing it to living with a man who owns multiple bikes.
Her page omitted several things she expected, such as her houseplant care supplies, tortoise-related purchases, and her husband's frequent DIY-related buys. She also wished her years of Kindle purchases had earned a nod to her intellectual aspirations, though she admits to actually reading "easy novels about relationships".
Pretentiousness and environmental cost
Amazon's comments on her page include "values specialized fitness nutrition products", "maintains premium coffee brewing setup", and "prefers Japanese stationery brands". She imagines this portrait as a single person, "mansplaining David Foster Wallace" on a date, and says, "I hate us."
The author reflects on the environmental cost of accumulation, noting a drive through Rotterdam port made her think about how much stuff people acquire over a lifetime. She mentions Amazon is estimated to have cost the UK £575m in lost tax revenue in 2024, faces accusations of unsafe and unethical employment practices, and is led by a man seemingly intent on spending his wealth on a rocket.
The most damning insight
The most damning thing Amazon knows about her, she writes, is that she is "too lazy and disorganised" to do without it. She resolved to print a picture of Bezos's rocket to shame herself into shopping around, but faces an immediate challenge: finding a source for her printer cartridges.
