How Buzzfeed quizzes are ruining my life

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  • Jeff Licciardello

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Jeff Licciardello

We’ve all been there. It’s Friday night, my English essay is due in two hours, and I’m avoiding my responsibilities. I don’t know about everybody else, but I personally get caught in the black hole known as Buzzfeed.com right before assignments are due. While the articles and lists injected with GIFs are nice, there is one section that always keeps me occupied for hours: the quiz section.

Unlike your typical health or calculus Folio assignments, these quizzes actually tell you important aspects you didn’t know about yourself. Why worry about stress management and mental health when you can be finding out if you can tell the difference between Justin Bieber and Angelica Pickles (I cannot)?

While most online quizzes can be objective and obviously skewed, Buzzfeed has perfected the art of the quiz. I know that when I click my favorite drink (iced coffee), favorite hashtag (ironic #yolo) and favorite Beyonce (Crazy in Love Beyonce) I will receive accurate feedback as to what city I should actually live in (it’s London by the way).

While it’s all fun and games, learning how Slytherin I actually am (extremely Slytherin), there is no greater evil than the new trend Buzzfeed has been trying to shove down my throat: the checkbox quiz.

For those of you who haven’t experienced the soul-shattering checkbox quiz, it’s extremely simple. The quiz features a list of boxes and you check the ones that apply to you to receive the results. While this all sounds fine and dandy, wait until you have to check over 137 boxes. I repeat — these quizzes take forever. It hooks me in because I get interested in how bro I actually am (not bro at all), but after 10 minutes scrolling through checkboxes, I was not satisfied by my results. Can I send my English professor my “level of bro” as an excuse for why my English essay was 45 minutes late?

These quizzes have been seriously taking over my life. I can’t open the Internet without wasting over four hours figuring out how Jersey I am (there is definitely Jersey in my veins). My studies are slacking, my friends are becoming distant, and I can’t stop retaking “Which ‘OC’ Character Are You,” because I refuse to accept that I am not Seth Cohen.

Some people would say I have a problem, but until I find the quiz “Is your Buzzfeed quiz obsession an issue?” I am going to keep on checking those boxes.