Francesca - Week 3: So like… What’s YOUR type?
“I’m an INTJ from Ravenclaw. We’re compatible!”
“I like guys with long hair. DNI if you’ve got a buzz cut.”
“I’m a fire-inclined, fox-spirited alpha. And don’t talk to me if you’re born in a water month because it’ll interfere with my alignment.”
…Okay. Got it. Well, here’s another question: Why does that matter so much to you? Isn’t it so stupid to limit yourself to pointless categories based on arbitrary characteristics?
I’ve heard that critique countless times: that this generation is obsessed with putting itself into boxes, and that our fixation on labels is inherently unhealthy and needs to stop. That there is some deep, aching insecurity that lies within the hearts of the youth which can only be alleviated by the bandage of a Buzzfeed personality quiz.
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| Putting categories into categories. |
Sure, they’ve kind of got a point. Labels can be reductive and encourage us to see each other as nothing more than whatever category we’ve assigned them. But I’ve gotten tired of hearing this framed as a modern problem. Because personality labels are not a new phenomenon–they’re the successor of a much older, much more sinister human habit.
Stereotyping.
Before kids had MBTI, Hogwarts houses and astrology, they had class stereotypes. The jock, the nerd, the quiet kid, the class clown. And before that, people judged each other based on their race, gender, or the color of their skin. Even though the labels changed, the idea behind them is almost exactly the same: reducing a person who is too complicated to understand at a glance to a handful of characteristics that make them easier to comprehend.
Does that mean we’re destined to be eternally subject to pointless categorization? Not quite. Because now, there’s been an important change: we now get to choose our labels ourselves.
I’ve heard people talk about the LGBTQ+ community the same way they talk about people who are obsessed with Buzzfeed quizzes. The key difference that they fail to recognize is that for them, labels capture something far more integral to their identity. For them, a label can be a single term that finally gives someone a way to communicate a gender or orientation that they have struggled to put into words.
So obviously, not all labels are created equal. Calling yourself an INTJ because you relate to a four letter personality type is not the same thing as calling yourself bisexual because you have discovered something meaningful about your identity.
But both come from the human desire to be understood.
Humans are difficult to explain. There’s no combination of symbols, Hogwarts house, zodiac sign, gender, or sexuality that can completely capture who a person is. But that doesn’t mean that you can’t gain important information from the labels that people choose to describe themselves.
Instead of looking at labels as a way to tell someone’s entire story, we should see them as a place to start.
Anyway. Take this random quiz, and let me know what YOUR type is.
Francesca, I found it interesting how you tied back stereotypes into our personal identities. I suppose, without even realizing it, we make these stereotypes such a big part of our identity. Whether that’s being a club president, an athlete, a musician, an actor, or a Hufflepuff on those random personality quizzes, I think the roles we play in our school community become this characteristic that is so vital to how we perceive ourselves.
ReplyDeleteThe way you explained the connection between the LGBTQ+ community and stereotypes was fascinating. I never really thought about how the stereotypes associated with the community were actually just a way for them to understand how they fit into a society that really only considered a historically “correct” way to live life. I agree with your stance that it became a starting point to somehow define the queer identity that had never been openly defined before.
However, I do think that the seemingly worthless personality quizzes are actually quite vital to our identities. As much as zodiac signs or your Hogwart’s house may seem pointless, I believe it’s actually super important in our personal understanding of who we are as people. When we’re living our lives, I know I personally feel this, but I think many people also get curious about how to honestly describe themselves and see how they are viewed by the other people in their lives. When picking out personality traits we probably only think of the best ones and then validate them in our minds, but personality quizzes are objective ways to “diagnose,” if you will, our true personality.
It can either give us newer perspectives on ourselves, give us comfort in knowing we belong in some sort of place in society, or encourage us to keep being ourselves. Thank you for this insight, it really got me thinking about this!
I noticed that you tend to discuss your personal experiences and tie it back into a broader societal claim in your blogs. This week, I liked how you tried a new style of adding bits of your personal voice into your broader argument. Also the quiz you attached is pure witchcraft, I genuinely don’t know how it diagnosed my “type” based on the foods I like to eat, but that was a super cool addition to your blog, and definitely made me more personally connected.
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ReplyDeleteI appreciated the comparison between modern personality identifications and older forms of stereotyping because it made me think about how our need to categorize people into specific sections has stayed consistent even though how we do it has changed. The examples of MBTI and Hogwarts houses make the labeling seem initially harmless; however, your connection to stereotypes shows how quickly a label can be a method of making assumptions about someone without actual experience.
ReplyDeleteI especially liked your point that we now have more control over these identifications we choose for ourselves. This is a really important distinction because there is a big difference between someone else deciding what you are and can be and you finding a word that can explain or represent something about yourself. At the same time, these labels can limit us to the restrictions surrounding it if we choose to confine ourselves in that box. The problem is not actually the label I feel, it is the way we choose and allow the label to define our identity and characteristics.
Such labels can give people a basic understanding of who we are. But, the purpose of human lives is the complexity that comes with, through the lived experiences and personality. There will always be much more than a broad category to fit a person in. Maybe these labels are just a simpler way of communicating our entire past in a brief manner to someone we recently met. However, relationships are meant for people to stick with you, uncovering layers of your personality and past rather than giving a generalization of it immediately.
Francesca, I enjoyed how you began your blog with examples from different types of quizzes to introduce your topic. The picture you inserted was quite amusing, I never thought categorizing categories would ever be a thing.
ReplyDeleteI think it is interesting how you created the connection between how these personality quizzes relate to labels. I guess it is a sort of human nature to want to be understood, even if it is by a random quiz online that helps us be “alleviated.” For me, last week in my blog, I wrote about how favorite characters help to reveal a bit about ourselves, but maybe that realization of connections actually help fulfill a certain emptiness in ourselves. The similarities I had with my favorite character perhaps filled this void?
I liked how you pointed out that these stereotyped labels help to break down our personality traits into easier to understand terms that we actually can relate to. Rather than large words that we might not understand or characters that might get lost in translation, things you said, like “the nerd” or “the class clown” are more straightforward to recognize.
I think it is thought-provoking how you discovered how we like seeing the results of these personality quizzes while knowing that these labels don’t define us. These results are only a small glimpse into who we really are and getting to know others is a better way than looking at their labels.
For your random quiz you attached at the end, it was amazing how it even came up with a response based on food that somehow relates to your type? I guess that’s the weird, incomprehensible way a personality quiz works; it's just like how we humans are just as puzzling.