PHOTO ILLUSTRATION BY: KAYLA BEATTY
Emily Cegielski read a list from the popular website Buzzfeed and decided to buy some guinea pigs.
The Ole Miss graduate and quiz writer became the proud owner of two hairless guinea pigs after being inspired when a friend shared a list on her Facebook profile entitled “Skinny Pigs Make Everyone’s Day Better.”
While online lists and quizzes such as “10 Pizza Jokes You Need in Your Life” and “Which Hollywood Actor is Your Soulmate?” have not necessarily turned all readers into pet owners, they have become an increasingly popular trend that is defining modern consumption of media.
One very large demographic that latched onto this phenomenon early includes college students.
Cegielski began writing lists and quizzes through Buzzfeed’s community post option as a college senior. She landed a job as the homepage managing editor of aol.com, where she creates similar content to help the company reach a younger audience.
“The lists and quizzes are great because it’s something you can share, and I think that’s why we connect with them so much because we’re a younger generation and we’re so social,” said Cegielski. “They’re such small tidbits that are so easy to digest as a reader.”
The University of Mississippi’s Assistant Director of Social Media, Ryan Whittington, explains why media are struggling to maintain the attention of a younger generation.
“The way I consume media, the typical marketer or journalist has about 12 seconds to get my attention and make me think ‘this is something I need to read,’” said Whittington. “For Generation Z, which includes people born after 1994, that person has 8 seconds. So you see a drastic decrease in the amount of time and attention people will give traditional marketing and communication messages.”
College students, in particular, are seeing more and more quizzes and lists from Buzzfeed and other similar sources pop up in their Facebook newsfeed, often shared by friends of a similar age.
“It’s a mindless thing to do and a way to fill time, but it’s also kind of insightful in a way,” said college freshman Mary Margaret Hyer. “It takes your opinions and makes a general statement about who you are based on your interests, and I think people like to hear things about themselves and are looking for who they are.”
This curiosity about identity combined with a platform that instantly appeals to the eye creates a combination that has hooked the younger generation.
“A quiz works because it’s an interactive technique,” said Whittington. “If you can get someone to take the first question you have them for the rest of the quiz and then at the end you can say ‘for more like this visit this website,’ and they’ll go.”
Hyer agrees that it’s hard to take just one quiz.
“When I take a quiz, I take like fifteen in a row,” said Hyer. “It’s not just a one at a time thing.”
Different levels of seriousness exist among the quizzes, and Hyer admits that she puts quite a bit of thought into her answers with varied results.
“More often on the silly quizzes I’ll disagree with some of the final results when it tells me that I’m not my favorite Disney princess or Harry Potter character, but the ones that are more insightful I would say 90 percent of the time I find accurate,” said Hyer.
Cegielski said once she stopped agonizing over creating the perfect quiz it was much easier to create a fun piece of media that people would enjoy.
“The people writing the quizzes realize they aren’t a fortune teller and just assume that most people are taking them for fun” she said, “but there are definitely people who take them way more seriously.”
She said it’s best for people to simply have a good time with the list or quiz, and view it as a form of entertainment.
Whether or not the reader is taking the message to heart, companies such as AOL are experiencing the benefits of sharing such content, and have watched their website traffic skyrocket.
“It’s actually been super beneficial and we’ve seen a growth in a younger audience and more people coming to the site just because we have jumped on that trend,” said Cegielski.
While companies are benefitting, journalists are struggling to hold the attention needed to convey a longer message.
“That’s one of the ways in which our world has changed, because we’re such a fast-paced world we have less time to consume information,” said Whittington. “Instead of long form we’re going to resort to short form and do it the easy way.”
Because of the faster pace, Whittington notes that there has been a dramatic decrease in the consumption of media in any form that cannot be read in a very short amount of time.
“Lists, quizzes, tests, in short form or in the digital age affect many individuals negatively, especially today,” said Whittington. “It’s almost like you have a deadline on yourself constantly, not only in the professional world, but now also in the social world.”
Whittington said a compromise is possible, but it will take work to bridge the gap between a generation of feature writers and a generation of list readers.
“I think there’s a way to do it, but I don’t think we’ve gotten to that sweet spot just yet,” said Whittington. “We’re still at an impasse with two opposing forces.”
One thing is certain: the trend isn’t slowing down.
“I don’t think it will ever break any type of barriers or change the world, but I don’t think it will go away either, said Cegielski. “It’s going to keep evolving and growing.”
