Difference between revisions of "William Babbitt"
(added caption) |
(Reworked this to cut words) |
||
| Line 7: | Line 7: | ||
==The Search for Me== | ==The Search for Me== | ||
| − | + | When I set about trying to find my own online identity I make a few decisions. First I decided that I would attempt to start with simple searches, things like just my first and last name, and then slowly be more specific over time using information that I found from the previous searches. My intention was to go about this as though I was someone who only knew my name and see what I could find about myself. This did lead to me finding significant amounts of information, and gave me most of the information I will discuss in the next section about my “real name”. | |
| − | + | After this I decided to move on and see how much information I could find if using everything I know about myself. For example I started to search usernames, groups that I knew I was a part of, etc, and this is what led me to looking at the information I discuss in “My Other Names”. | |
| − | + | ||
| − | + | ||
==My Real Name== | ==My Real Name== | ||
Revision as of 14:04, 19 February 2021
I am William McClure Babbitt. I was born in Lansing, Michigan on November 12th 1999 to my parents Pamela McClure Babbitt and William Eric Babbitt. I spent the majority of my life living at either my house in Eaton Rapids, Michigan where I attended Eaton Rapids Public Schools, or at my family cabin in Boyne Falls, Michigan. When I graduated high school I moved to Ann Arbor to attend the University of Michigan where I am studying Computer Science. This is, in a way, who I am. However, I would like to say that there is much more to me.
We are all in part made by what we surround ourselves with. Our friends, family, interests, and more all define who we are. For me, that means that I am largely defined by a love for computers and the internet, my rather large extended family, and a collection of hobbies ranging from tennis to tabletop RPGs. This is what I expected to find when searching for myself online, and in a way is what I found, but I did not expect to see how disjoint of an impression I have left on the web.
My presence on the internet is one of disconnected points, making a total picture of who I am difficult for someone to gain. This, I believe, is typical of how people are shown on the internet, and is something that leads to a fundamental misunderstanding of people in the modern world.
Contents
The Search for Me
When I set about trying to find my own online identity I make a few decisions. First I decided that I would attempt to start with simple searches, things like just my first and last name, and then slowly be more specific over time using information that I found from the previous searches. My intention was to go about this as though I was someone who only knew my name and see what I could find about myself. This did lead to me finding significant amounts of information, and gave me most of the information I will discuss in the next section about my “real name”.
After this I decided to move on and see how much information I could find if using everything I know about myself. For example I started to search usernames, groups that I knew I was a part of, etc, and this is what led me to looking at the information I discuss in “My Other Names”.
My Real Name
As said before I began my search by looking for my real name. Starting with simple searches of “William Babbitt” in Google. I was actually somewhat surprised how prevalent I was in these searches compared to the last time I had Googled myself. I found several of my public accounts including LinkedIn (the first result), Facebook, and Instagram. I also saw that going to the image results did show some pictures of me, although only profile pictures from various accounts.
I then expanded this search by adding on more identifying information that I knew was related to me. This was when I saw a divergence in how I am represented online. There is the “Old Me”, old accounts and results from my time in High School or before, and the “Modern Me”, accounts that I maintain and results related to me as I am now.
The Old Me
The results that I will call part of the “Old Me” were interesting. First off I had several accounts that I no longer use or maintain that were very prevalent. This included my Facebook page which is a mix of public (anyone can see it) and semi-private (limited to friends) information. This by far and away has the most information about me of any of these old accounts. I no longer use Facebook other than as a login for other online accounts, but it has information including my birthday, where I went/go to school, the family business that I worked at, Where I’m from, the name of my girlfriend, the names of family member, and many photos of me both that I posted and ones that I was tagged in. Not to mention the many posts that I made back in the day when I was around 13 years old. This was a bit surprising to me to see how much of this information was still on my Facebook. I’ve never been someone to closely protect information about myself, but I didn’t realize how public this old account still was.
The fact that this account was no longer used also created an interesting situation. Not only was this information public, but in places it was wrong. For example I never changed where I live to Ann Arbor, I still had old books, movies, quotes, and more listed as my “Favorites” when I hadn’t seen or read some of them since middle school. This left me feeling oddly exposed, and somewhat embarrassed, by this information. It is one thing to accept the lack of privacy the internet often necessitates, but for the lack of privacy to push a version of myself that is no longer true out into the world felt wrong.
This feeling was expanded upon when I came across many things related to my life in High School. I found several archived newspaper articles with my name on them related to my academics and extracurriculars in school, records of my rather poor performance on my school's tennis team, a long abandoned website for my school’s robotics team, and more. All of these presented this image of who I was in high school. A time capsule of that part of my life, sitting out there waiting to be looked at.
The Modern Me
The other side of the coin is my current digital identity. Here I include things like my LinkedIn page, my GitHub account, or my Instagram. All of these accounts were easy to find as well and are actively used and maintained by me. In contrast to the outdated material, all of these pages are much more polished and professional. They are pages that I would have no issue with anyone seeing and looking through, and in general I would say that they have the appearance of being made by someone who is older and more interested in having a nice looking presence for employers, friends, and anyone who’s looking.
This does pose the question however if this portrayal of myself is any more accurate that the “Old Me” version. The “Old Me” identity is outdated, but it was largely unfiltered by me. I didn’t think nearly as much about what I said, nor did I really care about what impressions I made on people. In contrast the “Modern Me” identity is one of careful curation. Thus perhaps the most honest view of who I am would come from an updated version of myself that is less performative to the world. One with more anonymity and less concern for people I know to see what I say.
My Other Names
After seeing most of what my real name had to offer, I moved to looking up usernames, aliases, email addresses, and other account information that wasn’t directly tied to my name. For example searching my YouTube account name led to finding my YouTube channel, which contained a few old school projects, all my playlists of videos I have saved over the years, and all the comments I have ever left on YouTube. Similarly searching my Reddit username quickly provided all the posts I have ever made, all the comments I have left, what communities I follow on the platform, and even the name of a subreddit I moderate.
Both of these accounts provided an interesting viewpoint because I have had these accounts for so long. By looking at my activity over the last decade of using them, you can easily follow my interests and hobbies as they came and went. You could see when I started coding in highschool from when I started posting on help threads on Reddit, when I started playing tabletop RPGs, when I got into different TV shows. You could even to an extent see how my opinions about things changed from the ideas I shared in comment sections across the internet. All of this done without the thought that anyone would really ever look at it and connect it back to me.
Reflection
When looking at the presence that I have created for myself online there are several things that stand out to me. The wealth of information available for one is interesting to see and I believe reflects on how ingrained my life and hobbies are with the internet. Most of all however I am interested to see the strong divides in the different identities I have online. There is not one continuous presentation of me out there that I would say accurately describes who I am. Instead there a serious of disjoint representations, each singling out a different aspect of my life and who I am. Some highlight who I was and how I defined myself in the past, others present myself to the world with the intent to send a message about who I want to be, and lastly some give what might be the truest insight into who I am but fail to connect to my name for all to see.
The modern world is the most connected civilization that has ever existed. But everyone’s identities are missing pieces. No one, from the average joe to the most famous celebrities, paints a full picture of who they are as a person. Instead we live in a world where piecemeal parts of our lives are on display, and we often take those appearances as the whole truth of who someone is. If anything this investigation into my digital identity has shown me that there is more to everyone than the internet might show, and we as a society should be careful not to assume that any one representation of someone is complete.
