We’ve all seen the Buzzfeed quizzes and Instagram carousels. If you’re lucky enough to be a part of the best generation (aka early 2000s), you’ve definitely done one of the magazine web quizzes. All of these sources bring us to the same point: it is so fun to learn about yourself through the perspective of others’ opinions. Which Friends character are you? Are you more of an introvert or an extrovert? What Taylor Swift album are you based on your zodiac sign? Those questions are just a scratch on the surface of the massive amounts of quizzes and articles the internet holds that are ready and waiting to unlock a new level of personality within us. I remember slumber parties with my cousins, four of us lying on the floor trying to read the same copy of Teen Beat Magazine and dragging our fingers through the web of questions to figure out which movie star would be our best friend. It’s a generational curiosity that I feel will never disappear because, especially in the age of social media, how we’re perceived is one of the greatest blessings and curses.
I’ve recently found myself back in a curiosity bubble of bizarre questions, asking my friends a different one almost every day. Their annoyance with my repetitive behavior only lasts so long when a short question becomes a passionate topic of discussion for an extended period of time. If I were an inanimate object, what would I be? What color is my aura? What animal does my personality give off? Most of these questions just come from my brain, and my genuine curiosity, but current era social media like TikTok keep these trends relevant by the overall algorithm sending ideas to every user’s phone. Most recently, the trend has been to randomly text your friends, “What are four things that remind you of me?” I had so much fun getting responses and putting together mini collages of what my friends think my vibe is, and it’s genuinely such an exciting and kind gesture to be considered and thought about in that perspective from people close to me. Not only is it fun to learn those things about myself, but it’s also fun to think about my friends like that. Similarly, getting rid of stakes and anticipating awkwardness by throwing out a random question like “Am I an A, B, C, or D answer choice on a test?” is a great way to get to know people better whether they’re friends you’ve had for years, months, or an ice breaker for a person you’ve known for only a few minutes.
The human psyche is so cool in the ways our personalities shift when we’re with different friends (either on purpose or not), in different phases of life, and in different settings such as home, work, and school. My friends from high school think of me completely differently from my friends from college, but my friends from college have a completely different idea of me than my friends from work do. It’s not always about putting up a front or living a different persona in each different setting, but the ways that we’re able to turn on and off parts of our personalities depending on who we’re with and what we’re doing is so interesting. To extend off of that, some things (especially my inanimate object question) don’t always revolve around just a vibe, but mostly objects attached to a shared memory. My sister always says that I remind her of a purple popsicle because she knows they’re my favorite. My best childhood friend always says that she relates me to the Fourth of July because, for virtually our entire lives, we’ve always spent that day together and made the biggest spectacle of it. I’ve also gotten cool answers like a glittery magic wand or a tambourine that have no real correlation to my life or my relationships with those people, but just vibes that my personality gives off. Not only do these questions and conversation topics cover opinions by friends, but scrolling through Instagram posts of zodiac sign correlations is also so fun. I’d consider those to be more of an educated hypothesis, though, when considering how the stars align and what specific traits each sign generally possesses. Overall, though, they reveal the same fun information! I’m a July Cancer, so most of the time I’m the sad or crazy one, but letting Instagram tell me that if I were a silly bug, I would be a nerd beetle is genuinely one of my favorite pastimes. All of this to say, take this as a sign to ask silly questions more often. Figure out what your vibe is in other people’s eyes and take the responses as compliments. When someone you love considers you to be more of a Joey than an Uncle Jesse, that is a sincere show of affection! As Taylor Swift herself was one of the most common responses in my four things that remind people of me, I leave you with a line from her debut album hit Tim McGraw: When you think Tim McGraw (but also just fill in the blank), I hope you think of me!
Edited and Reviewed by Kien Powell
