WTF Wednesday: Internet Quizzes

I remember when I was a teenager waiting until I read every article of the latest Cosmo Girl! magazine before taking the quiz on the last page. As I got older, the quizzes stayed in the same place, last page of the magazine, but the titles changed over the year from YM to Seventeen and eventually Cosmopolitan. These quizzes would tell you what kind of style you had, as if at 14 you didn’t already know you had bad style because it was the late 90s. Other quizzes would tell you the kind of friend you were and as you got older, the quizzes matured with you. What’s your make out style? How sexy do guys think that you are? The quizzes continue to this day in one form or another; and even though I stopped reading these magazines I’m sure little girls all across the country are still flopped on their bed reading about the latest heart-throb, locker decor and yes, taking these quizzes.

With the evolution of the great interwebs any yahoo can have a website (raises hand…) and a lot of magazines have transitioned to have an online presence. I, myself, am constantly rotating through my own favorites each serving its own purposes from informative to a total time-waster: Buzzfeed, The Chive, Refinery29,  HuffPost, the list goes on. (Shameless plug: You should add my site to your website rotation!) Over the last few months I’ve noticed those quizzes I took as a kid are popping up more and more on sites like these and they are getting kind of weird…

Friends, I apologize, I know this post is a day late but welcome to this week’s WTF Wednesday: Internet Quizzes! Buzzfeed and many other sites are literally out of control with quizzes. I cannot handle their ridiculousness; I fear they are going to tear families and friend groups apart and we’re already in tough times. I mean, is Selena even in Taylor’s squad anymore after dating The Weeknd? I’m so upset, I can’t add another layer of stress to my life!

Ok, jokes aside, go back with me, way back, to a simpler time, when Buzzfeed was a fresh, new site, and wasn’t considered ‘fake news’. Every now and then you would read an article like ‘27 Times “She’s The Man” Was The Best Movie of the Mid-00s‘. It’s true, that movie is everything. Channing Tatum with a tampon up his nose? Pure gold. However, the quizzes were also of a simpler time as well and few and far in-between. The quizzes were playful: ‘What Kardashian Do You Most Act Like?’ or  ‘Which Disney Prince Should You Marry?’ Side note: If you got any answer OTHER than ‘You’re nothing like a Kardashian’ on that quiz, stop what you’re doing, get outside, meditate and rethink some things in your life.

So, when I started to notice more quizzes than actual posts to read on Buzzfeed it most started to stress me out. This wasn’t a fun site to peruse anymore. I want to read about ‘45 Things Only 90s Kids Will Understand‘ and other silly ‘articles’. The other day I swear I took a quiz called ‘Pick Any Item on This List, Seriously Anything and We’ll Tell You Your Eye Color‘. I took it because, I needed to see how dumb this quiz was. It was dumb and it was wrong. I got Brown Eyes. So lazy. People with brown eyes are in the majority,  therefore this quiz will be correct a majority of the time. However, I have green eyes. Do you know the percentage on us? It’s 2%. We’re a rare breed. So no, Buzzfeed you didn’t guess my eye color.

The quizzes are continuing down the slippery slope to the Ridicu-list (credit: Anderson Cooper)  ‘Pick a fast-food item and we’ll tell you what state you live in.’ What? Impossible. ‘Any Girl Born in New York Who Moved a lot and Ended Up Growing Up in Pennsylvania but Eventually Moved to Florida for Work Can Ace This Quiz‘. How did you know where I was born? ‘All Aussie Girls with Brown Hair can Pass This Quiz With Their Eyes Closed‘. No, stop, let me off the ride! What is happening? Who is writing these quizzes? Do they have a degree in journalism or in bullshit? These writers need to work harder, find a new beat or just get rid of these quizzes all together. Like a Brooklyn Hipster, I’m ‘over it‘.

Alright, that’s my rant this week…Do you agree with me? Are these quizzes getting out of control? What’s the worst one you’ve seen?

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