There’s Even Less To Some Of Those Internet Tests Than I Thought

I knew that most of those Internet tests were worthless. You know the ones, the ones that supposedly scan your Facebook profile and somehow determine which of the seven dwarves you are at work or whatever. I knew they were garbage already, but I recently learned that there was even less to them than I thought.

I had decided to make that joke version of one of them, the “Am I the Sort of Person Who Takes This Test?” test. The idea was that if you click it would determine that you were the sort of person who takes the test. That’s it.

So do you know what was involved in creating the test? I gave it a title. I picked the templates for what the intro screen would look like and what the result screens would look like. I picked an image to use. Then I picked the results. It prompted me to design four, but I could select for more. I filled in the results that would get presented for each. The analysis? It prompted me for a selection as to whether the result was for male profiles, female profiles, or didn’t matter.

That’s it.

Literally, there was nothing connecting any result that was presented to anything about the person who took the test other than male/female/don’t care. Nothing connecting results to anything used to select the results. There was literally nothing under the hood…and there doesn’t appear to be for any of these test that “scan your profile” rather than ask you questions. No one is even trying.

This is like the giant sword in the original NES Final Fantasy.

Honestly, I kind of expected this. I just thought I’d report back since I found out a little more about what goes into the “analysis” for these tests. They’re even more of a waste of time than I originally thought. At least mine is pretty accurate (It doesn’t tell people they’re the sort of person to take my test if they didn’t take it.).