In order to better understand digital footprints and how much access the world has to information about us, I will be stalking my professors and recording all the information that I can dig up. Are they who we’ve been lead to believe they are?

Here is a timeline that includes the information about Professors Abdoney and Teaff. Let’s see how they compare!

The very abridged story of their lives can be seen on the timeline. I know their public, professional history, some of their relationship history, but learning the history of someone isn’t all that the internet is useful for; I also now have many insights into their hobbies and interests. For example:

Professor Abdoney likes photography, alpacas and other safari animals, her husbands guitar skills, her kid, chocolate cake, NASA, Gossip Girl, Sesame Street, Flat Stanley, gardening, pillows that have names embroidered into them, and most of all cats (judging by the sheer number of them). Could a marketing firm use any of this information to target her? Perhaps..

Professor Teaff on the other hand also is a fan of cats, though likely not as much, but that seems nearly impossible. She likes bright colors like red and rainbow scheme, which likely hints that she is an active supporter of LGBTQ rights which is awesome. While details of Professor Abdoney’s love life if public domain, Teaff’s is not evident. Oh the mystery! Perhaps she is dating a secret service agent.

I found a couple aspects of this project very interesting. Firstly, seeing all this information online reminded me of the black mirror episode “Be Right Back” in which a man is “resurrected” into an automaton that perfectly resembles him and uses social media to fuel his personality. After doing this assignments, I can definitely see a future like this. In professor Teaff’s Twitter bio she writes: “quiet & quirky. spiders & sequins. #resist” and just with these five words I feel like I got a pretty good idea of her personality. Additionally, with just a little research, I know quite a bit about their pasts and interests.

Secondly, I found it weird talking to my professors after I had just stalked them all weekend. It is one thing to scan their information online and assemble a personality for them based on their information, but a connection that is made in person feels so much more real that it is a little unsettling. Seeing them talk and express themselves after only having seen pictures and words was like watching a movie after reading the comic books. It became even more clear to me that face to face communication is way more influential than the internet and I think this realization will be useful to me in my upcoming endeavors.

“Be Right Back.” Black Mirror, Charlie Brooker, 2, 1, Year. 2013