Oh my God, please tell me who I am
By MADISON SEEMAN — meseeman@ucdavis.edu
Your horoscope says that Venus is the reason you’re all out of whack, the Myers-Briggs Type Indication (MBTI) test says you have the same personality type as the Joker and your major says you’re majorly in need of a break.
What even is a personality? Is it quantifiable? Merriam Webster’s dictionary defines “personality” as the “totality of an individual’s behavioral and emotional characteristics,” but the uQuiz I found says it can be measured by Pokémon Type. Because I don’t have enough on my plate right now, I spent hours of my life trying to get to know myself and the concept of personality itself.
I started with the classics. My MBTI is a typical introverted, intuitive, feeling and perceiving (INFP) and the last Enneagram test I took said I was 8 x ⅔ + 4 – 20, with a wing of the imaginary value i. Can an enneagram be negative? Can an enneagram tell you which of the thousand faces on Hinge is hiding your college sweetheart? Can an enneagram tell you whether or not that’s something you really want?
Then I got deeper — I started taking insightful, underground personality tests you’ve probably never heard of. I got a good grade on the IDR Labs Likeable Person test, which is obviously more reliable than my score on the IDR Labs Dark Traits test (I don’t want to talk about it). My Rorschach test said “Try again later,” and my Magic 8 Ball started leaking into the shape of a little blue man cowering in fear. Reddit said my Magic 8 Ball might be broken, and that the blue liquid leaking out may or may not be poisonous.
Everything I’ve read about my sun sign — Aries — seems to imply I’m full of irrational anger and malicious intentions. I know this may upset some Aries astrology-heads out there, but I’ve chosen to claim Pisces, my sign according to the new astrology rules NASA announced back in 2016, even if I do agree adding the Ophiuchus sign is a little blasphemous.
When I looked up my birthday on one guy’s advertisement-littered astrology blog, it solemnly informed me that my birthday makes me prone to heart disease. A different blog said I have “an army of admirers,” which I think I prefer! My mother said I have a family history of struggling to admit when I’m wrong, but my new sun sign, Pisces, says I’m “wise and full of spiritual depth,” so I think people should probably listen to me.
Now, as someone who’s taken many, many tests, I’m ready to drop some knowledge on you, dear reader.
Highly qualified armchair psychologists say that any personality tests taken during a cloudy finals week are void, and my Magic 8 Ball (now held together by duct tape) agrees you might want to try again when you’re in a better mood.
Buzzfeed quizzes are untrustworthy (I consider myself more of a Luigi than a Bowser), but any uQuiz made by a decent middle schooler will be reliably eye-opening — it’s amazing what your favorite Mitski lyric can tell you about what “Peanuts” character you are. And I hate to break it to you, but that “Am I Gay?” quiz isn’t going to tell you anything you don’t already know.
Another heads up: A quick look through the reliably dedicated “#MBTI” tag on TikTok — the most-trusted source of 9 in 10 psychologists — will tell you that the “16Personalities” test is not a reliable way to get your MBTI. If you’re going to put yourself in a box, make sure it’s a credible one.
It can also be difficult to reconcile differing results. If the Big Five test says that you’re incredibly agreeable, but your star sign doesn’t agree, who can you trust? You might need to take a test on whether you’re more spiritual or logical to get your answer. When you have a headache, WebMD will say you might have cancer, but your star chart still says you’re a triple Virgo — my (taped together) Magic 8 Ball says “Try again later.”
It’s easy to lose yourself in finding yourself. Your friends might say you’re obsessed, and your parents might struggle to find a delicate way to tell you that you’re going a little too far. But, it’s not your fault — that’s just the Snoopy in you (or at least that’s what that “Peanuts” personality test says).
Written by: Madison Seeman –– meseeman@ucdavis.edu
Disclaimer: (This article is humor and/or satire, and its content is purely fictional. The story and the names of “sources” are fictionalized.)
