While I’ve played a lot of geolocation games since the full-scale Russian invasion of my native country, Ukraine, kicked off, I haven’t written many reports about them. These games are meant to be fun, and I feel extreme guilt about having any kind of fun right now.
On the other hand, I spoke to a friend over the weekend, who said, “I don’t think your dead friends would want you to stop being who you are right now. How does that honor them?”
With that in mind, I would like to catalogue some of the challenges I did recently. If you look at the replies, you can see how and when my location was figured out.
As always, I use cute pictures, because women who post cute pictures get the most attention online. I want people to notice and to relate to what I am doing. On the other hand, the attention can have a dark side. Hence, I want to explore privacy concerns in what is a safe and fun game environment.
These games took me to many new places, on multiple adventures, and as always, I am deeply grateful for all friends and family who were involved in helping out.
If you’ve played these already, please go ahead and scroll down for a bonus game below.
On the eve of the invasion
When I knew that it was coming, and many others did not. It wasn’t a gotcha moment for me, I was just so incredibly heartbroken:
That time I tried to socialize
I find going to events difficult right now. On the other hand, it was great to see a friend for her birthday, and to put a little work in (also, peep my romper!):
When a friend buys you a ticket
Cataloguing distressing footage from Ukraine was sending me into a tailspin. My colleague Oksana Baulina had recently been killed in Kyiv. A very good friend said, “You need to take a trip.”
I also wound up showing her just how fast a building can be geolocated. This is the part I absolutely love — introducing a friend to the concept and watching the gears turn in her head as the game goes on and she figures it out. This is precisely why I want to share the gift of geolocation with as many people as possible.
Spring breakers
I am allowed to be miserable, but I also have to make sure that my son remains in a good and stable place. This meant a spring break adventure, and a photo from yet another “nondescript” location.
This was probably my favorite game among all the games we played this spring. Precisely because it looks like generic America. People new to the process are likely to scoff and say that finding us would be impossible. It was possible:
The bonus round
This picture, meant as a somewhat sarcastic response to Matt Gaetz, recently went a little bit viral.
I hadn’t asked anyone to geolocate it, but I knew that my public digital footprint made it 100% possible. Yes, yes, even in spite of the somewhat blurred background.
Take a crack at it and see if you can do it!
It’s always fun when a picture goes viral, but when you have a lot of extra eyes on your stuff, it’s good to remember that not all of those eyes are friendly. It’s one of the reasons I don’t post in real time.
If you can’t do it, don’t worry. I really love my look here, so there’s always a good excuse to post it 😈
Stay with me for more games and investigations (I am digging into a doozy of a case right now), stay safe, don’t post your location in real time, and send this post to anyone who needs to see how easily their location can be found!
New to geolocating, but wow this makes me want to never post personal photos again (I know that's not the point you're going for, but still makes me cautious now).