Unlike many other types of addicts, however, the quiz junkies show that they still retain at least some sense of shame, dignity, patriotism, or all of the above by absolutely refusing to take specific quizzes offered to them. The numbers are few, but the fact that the quizzes I am about to show you have zero results posted indicates that somewhere, deep inside every “quizzie” exists a level of self-respect that will one day make them look in the mirror and ask “who am I, really?” Whether you interpret that as their salvation or their final damnation is up to you, but rest assured that your quizzie friend, whoever they may really be, was never willing to associate with the results of any of the following quizzes.
Which Assassinated Dictator Are You?
Leading the charge against freedom, justice, and defining one’s personality through interpersonal interactions, it’s “Which Assassinated Dictator Are You?” Seeing this quiz gives you a real insight into the mind of whoever they pay to write this stuff, and I’m pretty darn sure that they do pay someone to write this stuff. In my mind, there’s this young upstart programmer sitting in the basement of a small software development company whose job it is to come up with new and exciting applications for Facebook. Except he’s really bad at it. All he learned in school was how to prompt the user to make a choice, have that choice convert into a point value stored in a different variable for each possible result, and then at the end, return the name of the variable with the highest stored value. How does he keep his job? He’s his own creative team. I imagine the conversation went a little something like this:
Boss: “So, Programmer Guy, have you got any ideas for our Facebook Application Campaign?”
Guy: “Yes, sir. I propose we deliver a series of personality quizzes based on a gender-neutral, cross-cultural analysis of hot trends in the teen world.”
Boss: “What… what does that even mean?”
Guy: “Don’t worry, sir, it’ll be more popular than underage drinking, and a lot more legal!”
Boss: “Well, I guess that sounds good… I’ll go ahead and send you a creative guy…”
Guy: “That’s not necessary, sir. I can take care of the creative myself. Just let me do my thing and our applications installed number will skyrocket.”
Boss: “Well, alright, but you aren’t getting a raise for this.”
As if he even needs a raise. This hypothetical programmer is getting paid to piss me off. Take a look at a sample question from “Which Assassinated Dictator Are You?”
2. Which of these weapons are you most vulnerable against?
- RPG-7 Anti-Tank Grenade Launchers
- Guns
- Knives
- Leaf Shield
These answers, of course, refer to the possible quiz results of Anastasio Somoza Debayle, Rafael Leonidas Trujillo, Julius Caesar, and Air Man. I could feel my brain atrophying while writing that last bit, so allow me to refresh myself and enrich your mind by telling you something quite interesting about Julius Caesar. Despite what William Shakespeare’s Julius Caesar might have you believe, the man’s last words were not “Et tu, Brute? Then fall, Caesar!” It varies depending on what sort of publication of the play you read, but many of them even have a footnote to this effect. The version that I read back in high school did not. In fact, the actual last words of the emperor are hotly contested as is the question of whether or not he even spoke any. The only thing that people tend to agree on regarding this subject are that Shakespeare was a damn good playwright and that the line as written was never spoken by Caesar himself. High-school students tend to disagree with the former. Moving on to yet another quiz that’s likely to make you lose all faith in humanity, it’s…
Which Blight on American History Are You?
Who wouldn’t want to know whether they more closely resemble the War on Terror or McCarthyism? I wouldn’t. You probably wouldn’t either. Whoever comes up with these quizzes disagrees, and thinks we should jump right in to answer such exhilarating questions as…
4. Do you care about black people?
- Yes.
- As long as they aren’t Communists
- As long as they aren’t terrorists.
- As long as they aren’t crooks.
- No.
Taking a look at the code reveals that each of the answers corresponds to, in reverse order, the Katrina Fiasco, Watergate, the War on Terror, McCarthyism, and Kanye West’s Career. It seems our programmer friend is not a fan of Kanye West or his music. Everyone’s favorite school children from South Park, Colorado had some choice words regarding Kanye West, and while the episode certainly isn’t one of the best, it’s a lot funnier than an internet personality quiz. Let’s talk about something more interesting instead. Who would you say is most responsible for what we call McCarthyism? If you said Joseph McCarthy, you probably didn’t hit up Wikipedia beforehand. Check out the article if you’re interested in a bit of American history that I hope we never repeat, or continue on to the grand finale…
Which Horribly Disfiguring Disease Are You?
I give up. I really do. If you really want to know which horribly disfiguring disease you most closely resemble, then you’ve got some problems, the least of which is that you’re the guy who designed these quizzes and thought that actual human beings would like to take them. Hopefully between the time when I started writing this thing and the time it was posted (weeks) someone, anyone realized that there is a “bottom of the barrel” when it comes to internet personality quizzes and this is it. I’ll spare you the truly unpleasant details of a sample question and just tell you that the possible horribly disfiguring diseases are lymphatic filariasis, xerodoma pigmentosa, leishmaniasis, and yaws. Here’s an interesting fact regarding what all of these diseases have in common, other than being horribly disfiguring: they will all make you sad if you Google them. My advice is to not Google them.
It makes me sad that day after day I have to turn off my news feeds to various individuals to avoid being spammed by their incessant desire to learn about themselves through goofy internet personality quizzes, but like smoking, it’s a personal choice. People can define themselves to their heart’s content from the comfort of their Facebook applications tab. I’ll keep doing it the old fashioned way.
