Over the years, I’ve written how I have a love / hate relationship with Facebook.
To be fair, while Facebook has done some stupid things in terms of privacy, my ‘hate’ is reserved more for the companies and brands who use it than the brand itself.
That said, there is a new thing that is driving me nuts and it’s all those, ‘See Which Celeb You’re Most Like’ “quizzes”.
They are endless.
Find out which character from history you’re most like.
Which city you should live in.
Which footballers wife you should marry.
It’s the lowest form of clickbait and yet every day, a bunch of my supposedly intelligent friends fill my Facebook feed with the answers to the latest quiz they’ve taken.
So I thought I’d see if they would literally take part in any quiz that gives them a moment of escape from their lives, so I created this.
Yes, I know it’s childish … yes, I know it’s petty … and yes, I know I should be doing much better things with my time but I was interested to see what would happen and given I was quickly inundated with emails from friends insulting me, I realised I’d been quite successful in showing how sad and delusional a bunch of my friends really were.
Mind you, given they’re happy to publically associate with me, it should have been pretty obvious how sad and delusional they were.
But why are these things so popular?
Sure, they take a few seconds to do, but the fact they seem to be continually embraced means it’s more than simply ‘passing the time’.
I’m not suggesting people believe what they’re told [though it is amazing how many publish the result with an accompanying text that reads something like, “sounds about right to me”] but I wonder if part of their attraction is that deep down, we all have a desire to feel we are/were destined for bigger, better things and these quizzes give our fragile egos a nano-second of delusional satisfaction.
I could be wrong [and let’s face it, I probably am] but I find it interesting that the people who seem to embrace these questionnaires the most [at least of my Facebook friends] tend to generally be over 35 years of age.
Maybe – and I appreciate I’m clutching at straws here – it all links back to something I wrote way back in 2007.
Basically I suggested that one of the reasons we were seeing a huge increase in drug consumption with the over 30’s [distribution, disposable income and price decline aside] was because when they were at school, they were told that if they studied/practiced/worked hard, they would enjoy a ‘better life’ … however now they’ve hit their 30’s, they see their life is one of painful averageness and so are turning to drugs to momentarily hide/escape/forget/delude themselves from their reality.
Of course there is nothing wrong with living an average life, in some respects it’s wonderful, however if you were told for years by teachers [and parents] you would achieve something special – only to end up living a life similar to what your parents live – it must be emotionally confronting.
They must question all those hours they spent studying instead of playing.
All those hours practicing instead of exploring.
All those hours trying instead of partying.
A childhood lost to a bunch of false hopes and promises.
I tell you, I’m bloody glad my teachers had low expectations for me … no wonder I don’t even drink, let alone do drugs.
Look, I have no idea what the reason is for these quizzes popularity and I’m definitely open to suggestions … in the meantime, I just hope my mates overlook the fact I’ve just called them a bunch of delusional fantasists who have failed in life, though the fact I said I was a friend of theirs probably led people to that conclusion already.