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June 28, 2006
A Silly Web Quiz with Real World Implications!
The Spouse directed my attention to this post from Kevin Drum, which sent my attention to a (yes, yet another) silly web quiz. However, this silly web quiz actually purports to diagnose your personal and political orientation (because the personal is the political).
And it's Canadian.
So, what are you waiting for? Go take the quiz.
Here are my results:
Now, I find it fascinating that the quiz lumped me in with the Gen-Xers. By the quiz's own admission, Gen-Xers are 34 or younger. Since your humble blogger is 35, according to the quiz, he should be a Baby Boomer. But clearly I am not a boomer. I'm in the middle (or toward the end) of the illustrious Generation X. Which the quiz, somehow, magically, knew. Except that its metric doesn't know. And not that anyone else really knows, either. (For more on the problems of defining the birth years that qualify one for membership in Gen X, check out Ted Rall's insightful and amusing article.)
Also, I'm fascinated that the quiz, despite plonking my big red circle smack dab in the middle of "The New Aquarians," classified me as a "Social Hedonist." I'm trying not to take it personally.
If you look at the grid, you'll notice that the categories are devided by generation. The Boomers get four major descriptors (solidly, dependably, depressingly square), the Pre-Boomers get three (back in my day we only had one category... and we were grateful to have that!), and Gen X gets a whopping six (I'd insert something snarky here, but I'm paralyzed by my plethora of options).
As for the descriptions of the various "tribes" themselves, I suppose I see myself more as a Social Hedonist than as a New Aquarian (following their terminology and given their descriptions -- I don't think I would ever use any of these terms to self-identify on my own), although some of the bits about New Aquarianism do ring true. But we're left, really, with the problem of differentiating these snapshots of political/personal identity from horoscopes. Write a horoscope broadly enough and include enough flattery, and it could appeal to anyone. Or everyone.
So what we really need here are more data points. Take the quiz. (There are some genuinely interesting sub-questions that I did not expect, but found immensely entertaining.) Report back. What do you think: is this a valid diagnostic, or just more silly web quizzery?
Posted by reparent at June 28, 2006 7:02 PM
Comments
I took the quiz, and it pegged me rather well...I am just mildly to the East and South of where you are, and am classified as a New Aquarian. As is usually the case with quizzes such as this, I just wished there were additional questions to pick up on nuances--clearly the side of me that is becoming more strict and conservative as I get older wasn't represented. The questions seem to be skewed towards issues related to money and social class, but didn't feel as thought they captured my views on education and health-related topics.
Posted by: suzanne at June 29, 2006 2:11 PM
It's a good thing I enjoy talking about ME.
Okay, here we go!
THEY claim I'm a CONNECTED ENTHUSIAST but that I show a similarity to the AUTONOMOUS REBEL.
For starters, as a purely semantic matter the aforementioned dual couplets appear to be axiomatically antagonistically antithetical (i.e., polar opposites).
After reading the more verbose descriptions of each, I determined that I'm far more of the latter than the former. Which tells me I must have answered a lot of questions wrong. It also tells me that I'm not "just a shade north" of all of you New Aquarians out there, but I'm actually in a different quadrant altogether!
The real clincher for me was the list of icons. Check this out: If I really were a CONNECTED ENTHUSIAST then I'd have to dig Madonna, Shirley MacLaine, and Celine Dion, among others (mainly a bunch of Canadians I've never heard of).
As an AUTONOMOUS REBEL, however, I get to chill with the likes of Martin Luther King, Jr., Bill and Hillary Clinton, John Lennon, and Justin Trudeau (I'm not exactly sure who he is, but his photo is HOT HOT HOT).
Okay, I'm done. Next?
Posted by: coeurlion at June 29, 2006 8:08 PM
I hesitated with some of the questions. I think this is due to the extreme nature of said questions and the lack of an inbetween. I am NE of the New Aq's, or if you were to place your finger on the dot and draw down, you would hit the "m" in Modern.
As far as the politicalpersonal, or personalpolitical is concerned, I always encounter difficulties when trying to describe and define these relations. I am on the tail end of a generation that learned that the political is not always "government" type institutions and values, whereas I would claim that most people after me (dare I say the 80's and on?) seem to strictly adhere to politics a.k.a. government, the president, war, and so on. Do you see what I mean? Granted I am not sure where that leaves me...I guess just N or modern, and NE of the New Aq's.
Posted by: jackie at June 29, 2006 8:57 PM