This week, we were tasked to spend 15 minutes finding out everything we can about ourselves by googling our own names.
I didn’t need the entire 15 minutes, turns out.
I’m one of those strange people who goes by a name that’s not printed on official documents like licenses or contracts. My “government name” is Thomas Baty, but for my entire life people have called me Cole – one of those family name things.
Anyhow, I started with googling Cole Baty, and only a few things turned up:
- A list of Facebook accounts with the name Cole Baty
- My YouTube channel
- My Twitter account
I deactivated my Facebook account two General Elections ago, but even when it was active I still had the privacy settings arranged such that I wouldn’t show up in search terms. It’s nice to see that even all these years later, nothing turns up:
My YouTube account is mostly dumb clips from playing Call of Duty, as well as a few recordings of performances from my previous life as a trumpet player in the U.S. Army. Perusing my subscriptions would just tell you that I like drag queens and cooking channels. So, from YouTube, you’d learn:
- I like to play Call of Duty
- I watch drag queen videos
- I like to cook Korean food
- I used to be in the Army
My Twitter account also showed up in results – my profile photo even turned up in the “images” results. I used a private browsing session to see what an unauthenticated user would see on this account. Someone would learn that I’m an “aspiring cybersecurity professional” living in Norfolk. If you looked thoroughly at the list of accounts I’m following, you’d find ODU, so someone might be able to piece together the fact that I’m a student at ODU, studying cybersecurity (I have a few tweets not very far down that talk about being in class). But, to me, mostly this account reveals that I like stupid jokes and, like most Twitter users, sometimes think too highly of myself.
Searching for my government name turned up plenty of hits, but none were me.
Fifteen minutes well spent, I’d say.