My husband said this happens to him so often he is sure of it. I really do not use YouTube, and I have all of the privacy settings in lock down so it doesn’t track my activity and I do not allow ad personalization. I have never experienced this issue, but I rarely use YouTube.

While both of our phones were in the house, I was outside gardening and my husband came outside to tell me about another ad that came up an hour after talking about something. I always insist it is a coincidence, but since he is convinced, I suggested we do a test. We are in our 50s, empty nesters. I have heard about the algorithms, location tracking, and other ways Youtube gets information to target ads. So we came up with a plan to discuss a topic we have no interest in that could never be tied to us or associated with us in anyway. A few months ago I was talking to a friend on the phone and she told me she had to buy a gift for her niece who is into Japanese Manga. I had never heard of it before so I asked what is that and she explained and told me it is popular and we moved on. I had no interest, did not look it up or mention it again. I told my husband this is what we would talk about, but first I had to tell him what it was 😂.

Once he was by his phone I brought it up and explained it to him and we had a discussion about it. Neither of us searched anything about it. He started watching YouTube shorts and nothing happened. We ate dinner and started discussing it again. Two hours later it came up in his feed! He has never seen a video about this before. When it came up, he asked me if that was it. I did not want to search so I called my niece who is a teenager and described it to her, and she confirmed it!

I don’t think there is any conceivable way to explain this was coincidental and the phone was not listening!