Josh Falcone – General Assignment Reporter
Anybody who has signed into a Facebook account in the past year has seen a link from the website BuzzFeed, be it a quiz to find out which ‘Friends’ character they are, which ‘Hunger Games’ district they belong in, or a list of junk food products only a child of the ‘90’s would remember.
BuzzFeed, which describes itself as a social news and entertainment company, offers those that visit the site a mismatch of the internets best offerings, and boy is the website popular. Junior Dan Jennings said the reason he believes BuzzFeed is so popular because it is the latest generation’s place to gather news.
“Truthfully I think it’s so popular because it’s the CNN of pop culture for our generation,” Jennings said before adding that he loves the site. “Buzzfeed is great! Their stories give me a buzz of excitement.”
Columbia Business School professor Keith Wilcox said in a recent Metro.us article that the reason he believes BuzzFeed is so widely popular is because it is tapping into a trend on social media where people are posting positive things about themselves, or a “soft boast.” Wilcox goes on to say that BuzzFeed offers visitors the opportunity to take a quiz or read a list and link to them thus communicating how great they and their interests are without coming off as a braggart.
Preston Ni, a professor of communication studies at Foothill College, said in the Metro.us article that posting BuzzFeed links to Facebook or Twitter is a good way for someone to gain attention. “It’s part of the social media self-advertisement trend,” he said. “It helps people who are less expressive and more introverted to identify themselves and let other people know who they are. It’s a good way to start a conversation topic and it’s better than ‘what I ate today’ or ‘how my cat looks today.’” According to Ni, posting the results of a BuzzFeed quiz to Facebook gives users a chance to have their friends compliment them even more.
Nursing major Jessica Beauvais said she constantly sees BuzzFeed posts on her Facebook wall. “When I see one I usually click on it and take the quiz,” she said. Beauvais said she thinks BuzzFeed is popular because it is a way for people to post on social media and find out what they have in common with others, she recently took a quiz on what character she was from the Disney film Frozen. “It’s a chance to see what others are and compare it to yourself,” Beauvais said. “I got Sven, the reindeer in it.”
Jennings said BuzzFeed is an exciting website where users can find entertainment but also news stories. “It has excitement, not just the typical straight forward depressing news you get from a news website,” he said. “It is also interactive with quizzes and ‘top 10’ articles. Oh, if you were wondering which 90’s cartoon I am, I’m Batman: The Animated Series.”
According to a Nieman Journalism Lab article, the quizzes offered by BuzzFeed are the latest in a long line of quizzes and they harken back to the old elementary school activity of the paper fortune teller, or the quizzes offered in magazines such as ‘Cosmo’ or ‘Seventeen.’ And just like the paper fortune teller or the Seventeen magazine quizzes, the quizzes on BuzzFeed are all about sharing the results.
The Nieman Journalism Lab article also stated that there is a chance BuzzFeed’s quizzes could wear out their welcome due to the overabundance of them being shared on other social media platforms. The quizzes offered by BuzzFeed could end up like the Facebook bumper stickers, gone and long forgotten.
