None of the Above
Why we’re all so obsessed with personality quizzes
Remember the high of going to the teen magazine section in 2006?
You flip through to the quiz section to find out which celeb would be your summer crush.
Next, you decide to check out the quiz “What’s your style?” Simply by following those neat colorful boxes with the giant arrows that leadyou to the next box based on two choices.
Only two choices. Simple.
And only three possible answers: Yes, no, sometimes.
Once in a while the answer would derive from which answer you chose the most- A, B, or C? I don’t know why, but I feel like I was usually a B girl.
Halfway through those quizzes you kind of had an idea of what you were going to get- based on where the arrow led and the fact all the A answers fit into the cliche “responsible girl” archetype.
The question is: did you start the quiz wanting a particular answer? Probably. Did you realize halfway through you were choosing a certain letter and wanted to reinforce that identity? Probably. Or perhaps you wanted to reinforce how you thought you fit into your friend group. Oh my god of course you got a guy that makes you laugh- that’s SO you!
Something about fitting into those colorful boxes felt comforting.
I don’t know how my anxiety-ridden-perfectionist-ass often got labeled the “laid back one.” Maybe because I was shy. Or “the sporty one.” I remember taking those quizzes and reasserting the box I already considered myself in. I loved sports so it wasn’t a lie, but does being a B girlie make it harder for me to explore what it’d be like to choose some A’s and C’s?
Living with my nephew, I’ve noticed he gets sent presents based on whatever he is enjoying at the time. Currently? Lots of trucks, truck stickers, books based on trucks- you get it. Because he genuinely loves trucks. But do you remember loving something so random as a kid and then being stuck getting that present from all of your relatives for every holiday? Like Aunt Janine, I went through a miniature glass animal phase one time 20 years ago- please stop gifting me a whole ass Noah’s Ark.
I was also often labeled a “Tomboy.” Which I look back at with a bit of a question mark. This quote from Tomboys (a script by me and Jess Friedman) sums it up pretty well:
“Tomboy is an antiquated word. It implies that only men can enjoy anything rough or physical. And that if you embrace anything deemed as feminine, you’re weak. You can wear lipstick while fucking shit up on the soccer field.”
I enjoyed being active. And dinosaurs, and building things, and playing in the mud- but why are these automatically labeled boy things? It should be a me thing. And I think there’s a possibility my interests would be more of a “Savanah” thing if I didn’t reinforce my own label over and over again. I also liked fairies, and setting up a doll house, and glittery shit. Those things weren’t at the forefront of my “identity.” However, I still got to enjoy those things because I was a kid.
As a kid you’re not so self-aware about who you are- you just simply are. Yes, those certain gifts come at Christmas, and you overhear your parents saying you’re a tomboy, but there’s no pressure to be anything other than a kid. As you grow older, the outside pressures get greater. You’re trying to simultaneously fit into a group of friends, find your place, and find yourself. So getting a Seventeen magazine and taking a quiz feels like the best kind of simplicity, just as your world and identity are growing more complicated.
In 7th grade, speakers came to our classroom to discuss careers, college, and the future. At the age of 13 my biggest concern should have been what to wear to my friend’s Bat Mitzvah. One speaker in particular told us “if you don’t know what you want to do now, you’re fucked.”
Now I’m sure they didn’t say “fuck” to a middle-school classroom, but they might as well have talked to us like adults if they were going to give us the pressure of adulthood. That memory is seared into my brain. At that point in time, I still thought I was capable of being a professional soccer player (lol). Suddenly I was worried about stacking up my high school schedule with AP classes so that I could get into a good college, get a good job, and survive the real world.
In 2005 we were told over and over again that it was impossible to get a job, that we needed to stand out. There’s no time for exploration when no jobs are left!
Life felt so serious when it shouldn’t have been. The decisions you made at 16 felt like the biggest deal. So some of us got a little calculated. Whether it be taking that AP class or joining an activity our friends all did in order to fit in. Or reinforcing whatever sense of self you could grasp onto. Maybe you were no longer interested in one of the sports you’ve played your whole life. But giving that up would mean giving up a piece of yourself that felt like a fact.
My mom often suggested we go to college with an Undecided major. No rush to choose what we wanted to do as a career. And if we did graduate with a certain major, it didn’t mean that was what we had to do with the rest of our lives. I’m thankful she instilled this idea in my sisters and me. But her words were drowned out by peers and society. I remember meeting people in college who told me they were majoring in Business even though they had no interest in it- they just wanted to land a good job out of college. I remember my younger sister calling my mom crying because her advisor told her she wouldn’t amount to anything if she didn’t pick a major freshman year.
I can go on and on with these anecdotes. The point is that we were constantly being told we needed to make decisions- and the right ones. But those rushed decisions often forced us to abandon ourselves, our chance to discover our likes and dislikes, to become unique.
Another bit from something I wrote (about my childhood friends):
“Our personalities felt so distinct... Did I realize it at the time? Or did I feel how I do now- a bit of mixed bag. Well, more like a blob of unsureness. I can’t make out a distinct personality, maybe that’s why I take so many Buzzfeed quizzes. Are we who we were as kids? Are those our true personalities before society gets their hands on us, confuses us, then spits us back out into the world with expectations.”
I often joke that I wish a Buzzfeed quiz could tell me what decision to make next. A few friends and I went through a phase of taking those personality quizzes. We would screenshot our results and send them to each other, often replying “so accurate!” It’s satisfying to be told something about yourself. It’s even more satisfying to confirm what you want to think about yourself.
We are in a time where everyone knows their Enneagram number, their Meyers-Briggs type, their rising, moon, and sun sign. I am a key example (Enneagram 4, Virgo rising, Gryffindor). I live for a new personality quiz, a new way to identify myself. There are many nights when I can’t sleep and I read my co-star app- convincing myself that there is something in my horoscope for the next day that will tell me what to do. I am leaving a decision up to the stars, which somehow feels more practical than making a decision myself (I’m fully aware it’s delusional, okay?!).
I believe the need to label ourselves- “I’m a Carrie with a bit of a Miranda-” comes from something psychological. The label, the category, the definitive answer makes it more truthful somehow. Humans have always found some psychological satisfaction in categorizing and labeling, of finding the answer. So we take those Buzzfeed quizzes, and if we don’t like the answer, we can retake it. In real life, we don’t get many retakes. Let’s find out what type of penguin we are based on the home we design. It’s easier than figuring out what type of human we are based on the life we design.
It’s easy to be a black-and-white, all-or-nothing thinker. Because the gray is scary. And we grew up in a time that somehow made it scarier. But I think in the gray, we’re able to go beyond our limits. Without seeing which arrows lead to which summer crush, we can surprise ourselves. Or make a mistake and learn something along the way. Unless a psychic out there knows my summer crush- please contact me.