Rogier

Above: the book ‘De drie maanden uit het leven van Rogier’ and a photo I took of Rogier when meeting him in September 2013

For this project I followed someone who shared so much about himself online, that it was possible to base a novel on it. Through a random search query on Twitter I found the 17-year-old Rogier Hogervorst and followed him for three months on Twitter and Instagram, from the 1st of April until the 30th of June. He had shared a significant amount of personal information online. So much so that it was possible for me to write a novel based on the data he published. During those months Rogier shared 5638 Tweets and 137 Instagram photos. The novel that emerged contains three chapters, one for each month.

During this process Rogier was not aware of me following him. Informing him or to ask for consent was not necessary; all messages used for the book were publicly shared by Rogier himself. After the book was published I notified Rogier via Twitter.

The novel is titled ‘De drie maanden uit het leven van Rogier’ (The three months in the life of Rogier) and is currently available in Dutch only. Please contact me if you are interested in a copy.

Scroll down for an extensive timeline portraying everything that happened during this project, including Rogier’s response.