Are you an asshole? Take this quiz!

Made you look! And here’s the thing: quizzes are pretty irresistible. Websites looking for clicks know this, so if you are on Facebook, chances are you have seen a quiz or two (or ten) every day, and probably taken a few, too.

This week, I saw a new kind of quiz that strikes me as the wave of the future. The title was “Are you a food asshole?”, and it consisted of a list of foods you could check off if you had ever eaten them. Most were currently trendy (kale, salad in a jar, quinoa). If you got a low score, you were not a “food asshole”; a high score and you were. I was intrigued by this new variation on the popular format.

I took the quiz and shared the results with my friends (not a food asshole! Yay, me!) Within a day, nearly 100 people had also taken he quiz and/or commented about it. Tempers flared; some of the things on the list are trendy among white people, but staples among Latino or Filipino populations.

Here’s what I think. Quizzes are great click bait, but offensive quizzes are a gold mine. We’re going to see more of them. In my opinion, this is not a good thing. They are mean and divisive; the very last thing we need right now.