What Digital Identity?

Google has shown me that every word I’ve ever typed into any social networking site is forever written in stone (or code?) and is irreversible. Oh how I regret most of my high school years. The first results were WordPress, MySpace and Facebook and I’m quite embarrassed by some of the things I said via these websites.

The ones from MySpace were quite funny, though. What had come up was posts I made on my ex-boyfriend’s MySpace congratulating him on his new girlfriend and I told him to “treat her well” as she was my former best friend and I was looking out for her (or something). Not “formerly” because she went out with my ex-boyfriend and, lyke omg, thas total betrayal, lol… but because SHE stopped talking to ME. That was completely unncessary information and I can see that I haven’t yet forgiven and forgotten some things…

I found an article from The Daily Observer that covered my (second) graduation, which I think kind of redeems my terrible grade 10 MySpace coverage mentioned above, even if only a little bit, as it was a high point in my life. I won some awards and got a medal and a plaque. I was proud of myself.

Those were just on page one of all the results.

On page 9 I found just a list of names on the website justnames.net. When I clicked on mine it said “Julia Klimack name NOT found”. My mum’s and sister’s names were there as well, but the same thing happened when I clicked on them… This didn’t really give me any information about myself, needless to say.

On page 10 ( the last page) Google told me:

In order to show you the most relevant results, we have omitted some entries very similar to the 93 already displayed.

My relevance is only through blogs and social networking sites? I don’t exist anywhere else on the internet in any other form than an angsty teenager?

I clicked on the link to display the omitted results.

I gave up at page 22.

My goal is to make sure Google makes me relevant and to find out how to do that exactly…

“rel·e·vant

ˈrɛləvənt/ Show Spelled[rel-uh-vuhnt] Show IPA

–adjective

bearing upon or connected with the matter in hand; pertinent: a relevant remark.”

I guess I would like to be considered relevant in the field I’m studying. I would like my name to be associated with new media and photography, and whenever people discuss the two, my name will come up and they’ll discuss some of my works.

I certainly wouldn’t want any future employers or my teachers to see this (sorry, Alex :P). It just doesn’t sound professional, but also… why would an employer or teacher base their opinion of me off of grade 10 drama?

Hopefully in this class I’ll learn how to make my digital footprint more professional.

And also filter out all of the unnecessary drama from search engines and make sure what results do come up are positive ones.

-J