Incognito

September 5, 2014

Ah, it’s that time of year again: when you log onto Facebook, begin scrolling down your news feed, and wonder if you are signed onto someone else’s account. But have no fear! Those people, indeed are your friends. With the recent flood of technology and social media in the past decade, it has become easy to locate a person on Facebook, Instagram, and Twitter to look through their photos and personal information. Even colleges have begun searching for their applicant’s Facebooks in order to see what these students do during their free time. The idea of these daunting investigations has created a new senior tradition. Whether a student may certainly have information to hide, or no information to hide at all, seniors across the nation continue to change their Facebook names in the fall of their senior school year. In our own Country Day community, at least 50% of seniors have already changed their “mundane” names to very creative ones. To name a few: Marni Weiss to Fried Weiss; Sam Benson to Ben Samson; Marco Cartolano to Marco Pololano; Ines Lei to Inestle Nesquick; Shalini Chandar to Shal Sohard; Elizabeth Finny to Lizzy McGuire; Sidney Thomas to Sidknee Toemas; Mica Mlikota to Got Milkota; Jorge Castro to Hip Hip Jorge; Ryan Gomez to Ryan Car Dash Ian; David Gonzalez to Schrodinger DaveEquation; Jodi Bauson to G.I. Jodi.

It is evident that these seniors have spent time thinking of names that will provoke laughter and that will hide them from colleges. Perhaps Alyson Milberg went into the name-change-game with the best approach being to inhabit an absolutely different identity. Our very own Alyson Milberg is now known on Facebook as Mike Smith. Shhhh. Mike explained, “No one will find me now!” And as technology continues to make our private lives ever so public, it is assured that seniors will continue to “out-smart” admissions with the hope of being accepted into their dream school.