A Journey To The Edge Of The Facebook

Facebook’s “Trending” sidebar shows you:

a list of topics and hashtags that have recently spiked in popularity on Facebook. This list is personalized based on a number of factors, including Pages you’ve liked, your location and what’s trending across Facebook.

I rarely interact with links or brands or people on Facebook; my signals, for the purposes of generating a Trending list, are extremely attenuated. Still: stories are selected and served. Which ones? And how many???? I set out on a three-and-a-half-minute journey to find out. THE ANSWERS WILL alksdfjskdfj YOU.