Your Computer Thinks You Are Latin American

A month or two ago, I got around to inviting my sister to random Facebook groups.

They're mostly groups for seeing cool pictures taken in Latin America, a rental group and whatever else.

Anyway, since I did that, I remember her telling me at one point that she now gets advertisements on Facebook in Spanish.

Facebook thinks she is Latin American.

Or at least that she is a Spanish speaker.

When you move to Latin America, a similar effect can be had in various ways.

You don't even need to join Facebook groups for Latin Americans or in Spanish necessarily.

Eventually, your computer will think you are Latin American or speak Spanish.

The most obvious example is when you get onto a website and it directs you to the Spanish translated version of the website.

Which I don't mind personally but I have heard of other gringos new to Latin America complaining about this.

Some enjoy it because they take learning Spanish seriously and see it as a good way to improve their language skills.

Others just want everything written in English.

Another circumstance that they might find themselves in is when they get better deals because of their location.

I've noticed this on several occasions down here.

When I lived in a Colombian city called Barranquilla, I found it easy to get very good airline deals to Bogota using a local airline website.

When comparing the prices on that website to Expedia, it was a difference of a few hundreds of dollars more or less.

Similarly, I have Tinder.

I paid for Tinder Plus like two years ago and, for whatever reason, I still have it even though I haven't paid for Tinder Plus in two years.

I only paid for a one year membership.

And, when I did, I remember it being some crazy cheap deal.

At this moment, I forgot what the price was but I'm sure I've written about it elsewhere on my blog.

Like 30 bucks maybe for the whole year?

Granted, that was during the beginning of Covid so prices were cheaper in part because of that.

But also prices here are generally cheaper than when I look at Tinder in the US.

Much cheaper actually.

And, in my opinion, it's again likely because of my location.

Tinder thinks I am Latin American.

Another example I've noticed is that -- though it doesn't matter as much the location -- but I find news articles on some websites like NYT to get rid of the paywall when I go for the Spanish language version of their articles.

Not sure if it's still like that as it's been some time since I've gotten on their website (NYT) but it has been like that for me anyhow.

When you go for the English option, a paywall is thrown in. The Spanish option? No paywall.

I don't mind though. I appreciate the cheaper prices and don't mind it when the websites are in Spanish.

Anyway, I don't have anything else to say.

It's a simple topic to life down here and that's all.

Got anything to add?

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Thanks for reading.

Best regards,

Matt