Hey reader! As you may already be aware, I’ve recently been trying to find a new way to procrastinate and discovered the hallmark internet location for wasting time — Buzzfeed quizzes.
I’m not dishing out my opinion on Buzzfeed as a company, but I must admit that their quizzes are delightfully useless.
There are different categories of quizzes, with topics ranging from “Love” to “Would You Rather?” to “Disney.” They try to guess things like how you’re going to spend your Valentine’s Day or what your biggest pet peeve is. And there are plenty of other quizzes on the internet that are similar to Buzzfeed’s. There are quizzes that can help you discern your personal aesthetic, tell you about your intelligence or temperament, or even recommend where you should travel.
We’re in the age of constantly putting ourselves out in the media, but we often doubt who we are. It’s just a byproduct of growing up. When you’re in your teens, so much of your time is spent figuring out who exactly you are: what you like, what you dislike, how you want the world to see you, and how you want to impact the world. In the digital age, all of that processing and formation happens while using the internet. Sometimes this means that people figure out who they are on social media, or they take these quizzes or delve into sites to create themselves.
These quizzes are a quick and fun way to explore that.
Hopefully people don’t take these quizzes to determine what they’re like — I have a sense that they often confirm suspicions we have about ourselves. For example, I took quizzes on what my design aesthetic was. I already knew that I absolutely loved old-time libraries and would live in one if I could, and when I got the results that my style is most like vintage eclectic, it confirmed what I already knew.
The Buzzfeed quizzes are silly and entertaining. Mr. Kate’s “What’s My Aesthetic” quiz is a good one for finding out your design preferences. And Sporcle has many fun quizzes that actually engage your mind, like ones about naming all 50 states or words that start with the letter “L.”
Have a great time exploring these, reader — I’ll see you next week!
