Mackenzie Cole
Contents
Introduction
Perhaps the best rule my parents ever enforced was the banning of Facebook. When I was in 5th grade and all my classmates began bypassing the age requirement with their parent's permission, mine denied me from it entirely. Zuckerberg never got ahold of my precious awkward years. I am now a very grateful twenty-one-year-old. My digital persona is now only fragments of accounts that I barely enjoyed, having only had a handful of stints consistently using my accounts. If I could pull my old Webkinz or Club Penguin accounts, that would be another story. I am currently redesigning my portfolio website, making it unlisted to Google's search engines, which only further hides my identity online.
Searching for Mackenzie Cole
Common Name Anonymity
Although being generic is something I hoped to avoid my whole life, my name comes with its perks. At the University of Michigan alone, there are three more people that go by 'Mackenzie Cole.' Without first obtaining more personal information, Google does not return results pertaining to me. I am coining this phenomenon 'Common Name Anonymity.' It is the thin veil of anonymity provided to those who have names so common, their digital identity is difficult to track down.
Imposters
- other accounts found
- other people found
Effective Searches
- keywords + correct accounts
- social media platforms
Conclusions
What Only I Know
I suppose the internet really has no idea who I am at all and I am responsible for that. When I did find myself, I saw how surface-leveled all my social media accounts were. My digital identity lacks all the substance and depth I am proud of developing. I am comforted that old Tumblr accounts, One Direction 'stan' blogs, and middle-school Ask.fm accounts did not resurface without prior knowledge of my usernames. Those old accounts are skeletons sitting in my childhood closet, perhaps they are part of the reason I have been so private on the internet in my adult life.
