The Buzz about Buzzfeed

After reading a chapter about the fallacy of supply and demand in Predictably Irrational by Dan Ariely, I realized that one of the most common times that I fall victim to his theory is when I'm taking a Buzzfeed quiz  commonly shared on Facebook. Ariely emphasizes that we only think that we know what we want and what our preferences are. He stresses that we often go into situations where we think we know exactly what we are looking for and often come out with something entirely different.

In his example, he took all of his wants for a new car (gas mileage, safety rating, ect.) and plugged it into a website that told him which car would suit him best. He was dissatisfied to learn that the website suggested that a Ford Taurus was the best car for him and consequently went back and changed many of his inputs to get a different car suggestion until the website proposed a sports car.

While reading it, I couldn't help but think about myself taking a redundant quiz on Buzzfeed to tell me super important and accurate information like:

"What Grade Are You Getting In Life?"
 "Which Miranda Lambert Song Are You?" 
"What Wine Should You Actually Be Drinking?"
"What Actress Would Play You In The Movie Version Of Your Life?"
Sidenote: I gave all of the quizzes links so you too can fall victim to the ridiculously entertaining pastime.


After reviewing some of my results, just like Ariely, I protested that for sure Meryl Streep was not supposed to play me in the movie version of my life and that a California Merlot is far from my favorite wine so the quiz had to be wrong. I even went back and changed some of my answers until I got Jennifer Lawrence or Emma Stone and a Malbec. Of course, a 5-10 question quiz can't really accurately tell me what grade I'm getting in life, but I can't help but take my grade very seriously--even if I have to lie and say that my house is spotless.


The questions to these quizzes are generally along the lines of picking a favorite meal, how often you work out, a band you enjoy, your favorite outfit, or as seen "How you take your coffee." Even though when I'm going through the quiz I know that dinner tonight is more likely to be Taco Bell than a filet mignon, I go back and chose the filet mignon because hey, I'm trying to get a Malbec as my result!


Buzzfeed quizzes are very similar to Ariely's example of the car suggestion website. Despite knowing what the correct answers should be or what we actually want, we're distracted by the end result and alter "how I take my coffee" to "organic" to see if that spits out a different end result. The difference is we still display this behavior when there is no real value behind the outcome of which Miranda Lambert song I am. I suppose this takes us even further away from the economics standpoint of always maximizing utility. And I too am Predictably Irrational.