Blog 7- Miller Response

"People everywhere enjoy dividing the population into distinct categories. In Greece, Hippocrates (406-377?BC) classified people as sanguine, phlegmatic, melancholic, and choleric on the basis of body fluids or “humors.” These days the Internet serves as a source for all kinds of information on personality types with Web pages devoted to classifying human and even canine characters. Japanese women’s magazines reflect a similar fascination with individual traits and characteristics, featuring 
an amazing variety of methods for ascertaining taipu or “types” in 
almost any issue." (Miller, 1997, p. 143). 

               I found this article interesting because while its scope was largely limited to the human (particularly female) archetypes described and quantified in Japanese women's magazines, the content of the surveys that Miller discussed did not seem foreign at all. In fact, the bizarre survey topics ranging from eyebrow shape to blood type seemed all too familiar American magazines, especially the magazines targeted at young women contain many surveys of this sort. A quick glance at the Seventeen Magazine website reveals that at any moment young girls can take a quiz that will provide a "party personality" or a quiz that will delineate your true "perfume personality." For those more interested in love, quizzes can be taken to determine "If he really likes me," or "Does your guy flirt too much?" My natural comfort and familiarity with the quizzes discussed in the article caused me too question if perhaps I am too comfortable being labeled and pushed into bizarre and seemingly unnatural categories; or if I am far too comfortable labeling others utilizing an arbitrary set of guidelines.. I took a quiz to discover my "Halloween Candy Personality" and discovered that I am a "Smartie" personality. Seventeen claimed that:

 "You’re clever, focused, and always on your game. You see everything as a chance to learn something new or be creative, and you’re always striving to do your best. And just like your candy alter-ego, you’re like a sugar rush personified: When people get one taste of your energy, they can’t help but coming back for more!"

        Upon reading the description, I started to draw correlations between the description and what I know and believe to be true about myself. I read it jokingly to a friend sitting next to me, and soon she said, "I wonder what type I am?!" While we were doing the quizzes all in good fun, we all too quickly got sucked up into the possibility of having our true personalities discovered by our favorite candy choices. While I have faith that I can remove myself from having the label of "Smartie" define my life, I began to wonder how deep some of the classifications can run in an individuals life. While there is some merit, and perhaps more importantly, some inherent comfort in the ability to classify ourselves and  in turn, classify others, I think that such classifications can be as stifling as they are beneficial. Such would be the case if an individual lacks the ability or the support to see themselves beyond the strictures of the category. This could also be the case when an individual lacks the resources to define themselves in other ways. Alternatively, such classifications may leave an individual who is provided with a bevy of contrasting personality types feeling fractured, and spending ever more time researching their possible personality types in the depths of the internet.

Miller, L. (1997), People Types: Personality Classification in Japanese Women's Magazines. The Journal of Popular Culture, 31: 143–159.