Topic 30: talk, anything, work, need, let, better, day, help, ever
May 29, 2024 1:10 PM Subscribe
containing the word love?
posted by HearHere at 1:33 PM on May 29 [1 favorite]
posted by HearHere at 1:33 PM on May 29 [1 favorite]
This is a fun project and (as someone who has a spreadsheet for way too many aspects of his life) the exact sort of thing into which I would fall too deeply if I could. Fortunately I deleted my Facebook in January 2020 and my Twitter account several years before that and my phone is set to delete any of my text messages that are older than six months old so I've created a sort of inadvertent Eternal Sunshine of the Spotless Mind situation that keeps me from graphing all of my personal relationships.
posted by Parasite Unseen at 1:45 PM on May 29 [10 favorites]
posted by Parasite Unseen at 1:45 PM on May 29 [10 favorites]
I love this, and I love that she's so open about all of it. Thanks for sharing.
posted by Gorgik at 1:57 PM on May 29 [2 favorites]
posted by Gorgik at 1:57 PM on May 29 [2 favorites]
There's a definite pattern around February 2016 -- you can see that they really weren't texting that much at that time, and you see it across topics. There are some interesting differences there, where one of them talks about some topics more than others in that month. I would guess that something went wrong in their relationship in February, but it took another couple months until they actually broke up.
I wonder how often this is the pattern for couples, but we usually don't have the data to see it?
posted by OrangeDisk at 2:18 PM on May 29 [4 favorites]
I wonder how often this is the pattern for couples, but we usually don't have the data to see it?
posted by OrangeDisk at 2:18 PM on May 29 [4 favorites]
That’s really cool. I’ve been meaning to do it with my Metafilter comments.
She does bury part of the lede by not mentioning until the end that they were both 17 when the conversations took place.
posted by Tell Me No Lies at 2:19 PM on May 29 [1 favorite]
She does bury part of the lede by not mentioning until the end that they were both 17 when the conversations took place.
posted by Tell Me No Lies at 2:19 PM on May 29 [1 favorite]
Excellent stuff!
As a fun little side project, I'm about 90% through coding a web app that does this sort of thing on any exported WhatsApp chat (including groupchats). It has to run in-browser, for privacy, so some of the more advanced sentiment analysis would be a bit demanding — but the general idea is the same. Learning about concepts like TF-IDF has been fun. I like her graphs of key words over time, and will be stealing them.
posted by Klipspringer at 2:24 PM on May 29 [3 favorites]
As a fun little side project, I'm about 90% through coding a web app that does this sort of thing on any exported WhatsApp chat (including groupchats). It has to run in-browser, for privacy, so some of the more advanced sentiment analysis would be a bit demanding — but the general idea is the same. Learning about concepts like TF-IDF has been fun. I like her graphs of key words over time, and will be stealing them.
posted by Klipspringer at 2:24 PM on May 29 [3 favorites]
She does mention that they were teenagers throughout parts of the text, at least, even if she doesn't explicitly say how old until the end.
She credits her time at the Recurse Center for giving her the space to follow through on this project, which sounds like an interesting idea on its own. I know nothing about it but some of her concerns about what it's like to work in tech resonated with me and the idea that the Recurse Center helped her find answers to some of that is intriguing and kind of makes me wish I'd known about it sooner.
posted by chrominance at 2:25 PM on May 29 [4 favorites]
She credits her time at the Recurse Center for giving her the space to follow through on this project, which sounds like an interesting idea on its own. I know nothing about it but some of her concerns about what it's like to work in tech resonated with me and the idea that the Recurse Center helped her find answers to some of that is intriguing and kind of makes me wish I'd known about it sooner.
posted by chrominance at 2:25 PM on May 29 [4 favorites]
Very cool project!
posted by biogeo at 2:35 PM on May 29 [1 favorite]
posted by biogeo at 2:35 PM on May 29 [1 favorite]
New Dimensions in TMI.
posted by y2karl at 2:57 PM on May 29 [4 favorites]
posted by y2karl at 2:57 PM on May 29 [4 favorites]
I wonder if there was no cluster that might be fairly characterized as "horny" or if she excluded it for privacy's sake (which would be fine, it's her project). I mean, they were 17...but they were 17.
posted by praemunire at 3:06 PM on May 29 [3 favorites]
posted by praemunire at 3:06 PM on May 29 [3 favorites]
I've seen positive mentions of the Recurse Center here on MetaFilter - it sounds like a really great thing. Just as a couple of examples: positive words in this AskMe from 2022, plus some positive words in this FPP from 2017.
I love that it helps people pursue cool interests like this.
posted by kristi at 3:35 PM on May 29 [1 favorite]
I love that it helps people pursue cool interests like this.
posted by kristi at 3:35 PM on May 29 [1 favorite]
I'm trying to think how obsessively spread sheety and overly analytical I would have been if these tools had been available to me when I was young and overwrought. (Not passing judgement on her - just on younger me)
posted by drewbage1847 at 3:41 PM on May 29 [1 favorite]
posted by drewbage1847 at 3:41 PM on May 29 [1 favorite]
Wait—over 100 texts a day on average? whoa.
posted by umbú at 4:14 PM on May 29 [3 favorites]
posted by umbú at 4:14 PM on May 29 [3 favorites]
I love reading compilations of letters, or diaries. It’s a chance to see someone who you know from another context - author, etc. - in a sometimes more intimate way or just upfront, without the persona bestowed by the context. Reading famous author complaining to another famous author about poor service at a restaurant can give you a different view of their writings. Given that technology now can give you the ability to do what was done here is interesting, but for me, the granularity of the analysis sort of strips the humanity out of the exchange between the two people. You have what was said reduced to a few singular words, and no real information about how it was said. Relationships are more pie charts and not bar graphs.
posted by njohnson23 at 5:22 PM on May 29 [2 favorites]
posted by njohnson23 at 5:22 PM on May 29 [2 favorites]
Ohhhh -- thought this was a super-creative moderny short story.
posted by Droll Lord at 5:50 PM on May 29 [3 favorites]
posted by Droll Lord at 5:50 PM on May 29 [3 favorites]
Autometafiction?
posted by clew at 6:24 PM on May 29 [2 favorites]
posted by clew at 6:24 PM on May 29 [2 favorites]
I am so glad there is no record of my teenaged courting. I just spent hours on the phone with my sweetheart.
posted by The Manwich Horror at 9:54 PM on May 29 [3 favorites]
posted by The Manwich Horror at 9:54 PM on May 29 [3 favorites]
Wow. I would really love to see/do something similar for my messages with my ex-husband over the years. Ours go back to 2008, I think... and we've communicated relatively regularly during most of that time period, with periods of greater or lesser activity.
posted by stormyteal at 12:42 AM on May 30 [1 favorite]
posted by stormyteal at 12:42 AM on May 30 [1 favorite]
Huh.
He said sorry way more than she did. Other than that, none of the word data seemed particularly interesting. It is just a bunch of generic words, so I don’t understand how it adds insight.
Certainly, of interest to the author, and it seemed like a great coding/programing project, but not a revelatory experience of self-discovery. Not that she needed too, or even wanted to, but without that it seemed pointless to me.
The only (mildly) intriguing part:
“One friend in particular was surprised by the data and how it didn't align with their perception of the relationship.”
Would like to know what this perception was. But I’m a hopeless gossip and apparently not a data person…
posted by rhonzo at 5:13 AM on May 30 [5 favorites]
He said sorry way more than she did. Other than that, none of the word data seemed particularly interesting. It is just a bunch of generic words, so I don’t understand how it adds insight.
Certainly, of interest to the author, and it seemed like a great coding/programing project, but not a revelatory experience of self-discovery. Not that she needed too, or even wanted to, but without that it seemed pointless to me.
The only (mildly) intriguing part:
“One friend in particular was surprised by the data and how it didn't align with their perception of the relationship.”
Would like to know what this perception was. But I’m a hopeless gossip and apparently not a data person…
posted by rhonzo at 5:13 AM on May 30 [5 favorites]
There was a guy that did this analysis for his relationship with his girlfriend and then wife and it went from like eggplant emojis to “did you get diapers on the way home” over the span of 5 years and like yup checks out
posted by St. Peepsburg at 4:08 PM on May 30 [1 favorite]
posted by St. Peepsburg at 4:08 PM on May 30 [1 favorite]
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posted by Capt. Renault at 1:19 PM on May 29 [1 favorite]