Memo 21: Bios
Whenever I come across someone’s online profile for the first time, I end up reading their self-written bios more than I used to. Being the empathetic, understanding person I am, I judge these strangers from the small snippets of information.
Putting it like that doesn’t make me sound great, but that is not too different from what people have been doing towards others in everyday life. A low-hanging example is cultural fashion norms; the choice to follow or break them are nonverbal signals to people that say anything from “yes I know Lisa Says Gah!” or “These Balenciaga Crocs show that I’m rich, not normie poor.”¹
At the end of the day, people are judgemental. It’s not inherently a bad thing, as making decisions based on quick judgments is actually part of our evolutionary success. Sometimes, important decisions have to be made quickly — or at least without verbal discussion. Especially in our GTA-esque world of countless things happening around us, we can barely keep track of it all. So judging things off of breadcrumbs that people voluntarily give out becomes part of the game.
A lot of what makes its way into profile bios isn’t worthy of psychoanalysis, not even the witty meta lines. Where you are located, what you do, what you like, etc — that’s something people offer up on a silver platter within a minute or two of bar talk. I’m less interested in what bios reveal towards specific individuals and more interested in what’s in bios more than ever. After my improper analysis² of trends in bios relating to the small number of people I interact with online, I have settled on exploring the proliferation of self-promo links to podcasts and personality types.
Analyzing podcasts is fun because we’re not at the beginning of the podcast trend, and I for one have no idea where in the trend we are currently (if it’s even still a “trend” anymore, or now just a common hobby). The grounding thing about podcasts is that we’re listening to someone voluntarily, as they guide us through something we cannot see. This kind of experience is inherently personal while also building community. Like radio personalities and orators around the fire, we like who’s talking.
I will give a disclaimer that the majority of people who I see online with their podcast links in bios are comedians, ranging from up-and-coming to full-out professional. While this does make my analysis limited, it also proves my point about why podcasts are promoted like hell in bios. It’s something that has seeped into the comedy field for a while, as it is attractive for those who want to show off their stand-up skills without having to be in the big stand-up cities. But beyond that, self-promoting one’s podcast is effective in immediately getting someone’s personality across. We can instantly see how they talk and what they want to talk about, making it feel effortless while hours and hours go into creating the podcast behind the scenes. It’s hyperpresentation under the mask of casual chat.
Personality types (often MBTI results) are also something that people throw out into bios. If it makes life easier to judge others, it makes everything so much easier to be able to put ourselves in a box as well. That way, if someone judges you incorrectly, then screw them — you are the one who knows your true type. Serendipitously, a new doc on HBO called Persona: The Dark Truth Behind Personality Tests just came out this week and will probably do a hell of a lot job better explaining the dangers here than I. In short, the MBTI test was started by a woman in 1901 who originally wanted to understand her last-surviving child. Now, personality testing is a multi-billion dollar industry that grows around 15% per year. There are groups of people on the web that use the MBTI as a common interest and discuss what they all mean.
All the while, the MBTI has no grounding in clinical psychology. The most popular MBTI site, 16personalities, does not base its results on cognitive function and has a heavy bias towards intuitives. It’s not surprising that self-identifying personality tests do not have a lot of scientific backing, but the choice to take the test anyway and then put your type out there is telling. It shows that even if your type is miscast, or if the entire system of the personality test is inaccurate, it’s better to have something out there in your bio than nothing.
In both cases, podcast promo and personality tests are ways that people can try to circumvent judgment by strangers. It’s an easy “hey, I’m not what you think I am from these words — here is this MBTI test as a testament to my personality, and my podcast as a voucher for how funny I am.” On one level, it’s an attempt to distinguish yourself from others in the vast streams of the internet. But on another level, it’s a way to show that you have more in common with potential strangers than the stranger might think. It opens the door for conversation. By pulling on the common strings of community and knowing yourself, podcasts and MBTI types can remind people that we are all fallible to the same desires.
And because there is always more to consume, here are some LINKS from this past week:
The Ratchelor is an online recreation of the Bachelor, but with rat suitors! It’s not a very complex game but it tickles my brain enough to bring me joy.
In light of the recent deepfake Tom Cruise videos, here is how to spot a deepfake (hopefully) without needing to actually watch it, and on a lighter note, there’s news of Project Gucciberg offering classic audiobooks read by an AI deepfake of Gucci Mane.
The Only Good Memes Left Are Those Made in Dreams is a good peek into Thomas the Plank Engine, a subreddit where people recreate memes they saw in their dreams. It’s as unnervingly great as it sounds.
Dish of the week goes to this vegan khao man gai recipe, which I botched a little because I did not have vegan fish sauce on hand; regardless, it was a very filling straightforward dish. The sauce really rocked my socks off and the presence of fresh ginger… beautiful.
The idea of fashion being self-expression is relatively straightforward, but it becomes complex when factoring in the recent development of micro-trends, “sustainable clothing” and commodification of subcultures into styles. I won’t be able to fully get into it here, but if you wear skinny jeans on TikTok, be prepared to be called a millennial.
This is no real analysis at all, but just what I see a lot of. If you want real analysis worthy of a social science journal, head outta Jouissance!