Invasion of Privacy: Mat Johnson

Photo via Mat Johnson

If you have seen videos on one of Geneseo’s official social media platforms, they have almost definitely come from one person—Mat Johnson. Johnson has been the video producer within the office of college communications and marketing for over five years. But what if I told you that Johnson originally started his career as a zookeeper? 

Johnson initially earned his bachelor's degree in creative writing and terrestrial biology/ecology. To many, this may seem like an odd combination, but to Johnson it just made sense. Johnson spoke about how he enjoyed being creative and has an enduring love of animals; to him, the combination of the two majors just made sense.

“I’ve loved animals my entire life,” he said. “I suffer from terrible social anxiety, and animals never trigger my anxiety. Except for that time I had to help wrestle a 12-foot alligator. That was… stressful. Also, I like cleaning, and being a zookeeper is 75% cleaning.” 

After college, Johnson went on to work as an intern at the Seneca Park Zoo in Rochester, working with a penguin colony, and was later hired to work with other animal groups. Soon enough, Johnson found himself working with the education animals of Seneca Park, later moving to work exclusively with the educational animals at the Buffalo Zoo. 

Educational animals include animals that can be taken to classrooms for in-person demonstrations, petting zoo animals, and different types of birds: “I loved working with birds and children zoo animals,” Johnson said. “My favorites were a small group of Southdown Babydoll sheep that I raised from lambs. I trained them to give people kisses and jump through hoops. I also loved the raptor collection, which I was in charge of, especially a small blind Eastern Screech Owl named Olivia, and Franklin, an American Kestrel.”

Johnson spoke fondly of his time at the Zoo, and even recounts making some educational videos for the Buffalo Zoo YouTube channel: “I was inspired by a show from my childhood, Bill Nye the Science Guy, to create extremely cheesy educational videos for kids. These videos typically involved some poorly-acted sketches with sub-par production quality.” 

It became clear to Johnson that he enjoyed the video production element of his work, and went back to school in order to acquire the tools needed to produce higher quality videos: “I studied creative writing in school, but I didn’t want to be a novelist, so video production is a way for me to be creative and tell people’s stories in a different way.”

Once earning a degree in broadcast journalism, Johnson secured a job working for News 8 WROC as a part-time camera operator and editor for the morning news. This job sounds incredibly taxing, as Johnson described his daily schedule as nothing short of chaotic: “My usual shift at WROC started at 3:45 AM, to give us time—never enough—to edit videos for the morning news, which ran from 5-7 AM, during which I operated one of the two cameras for the live broadcast.”  Johnson also worked a second job in the evening, stating that some nights he would only get two or three hours of sleep.

This leads us to the question—how did Johnson end up at Geneseo? “I was contacted by someone at Geneseo who’d gotten my name from a photographer I’d interned for during my time at college—it’s all about networking. The opportunity sounded great, so I applied, got the job, and came to Geneseo!”

Not only does Johnson use his creativity for his profession, but as a hobby he produces a fictional audio drama podcast. 

When I asked Johnson how he would describe himself to someone he has never met, I was not surprised when the answer included an animal element. “I like to compare myself to a hungry squirrel: I’m curious, anxious, and determined.” This is a perfect combination of attributes for someone working in broadcast journalism here at Geneseo. 

Johnson is always around campus filming content for the Geneseo platforms, and who knows, maybe you will end up in one of his videos!

As a final thought, Johnson said; “If you see me around campus with my camera, say hi! I promise to be only mildly socially awkward.”