In the vast ocean of social media content, few things capture attention quite like the quick, eye-catching “personality test.” Maybe you’ve seen it while scrolling—an image of concentric circles paired with a bold declaration: “The Number of Circles You See Determines If You’re a Narcissist.” Maybe you paused to count the circles.
Maybe you shared it, curious about your friends’ reactions. Regardless, this meme taps into something deeply human: our desire to understand ourselves—and to understand others.But why do we place so much trust in a simple image claiming to reveal something as complex as narcissism?
From playful quizzes like “What Kind of Pizza Are You?” to more established assessments like the Myers-Briggs Type Indicator, personality tests have become a mainstay of online culture.
It’s worth asking: what’s really going on here?This article takes a closer look at the meme’s underlying elements—optical illusions, the psychology of narcissism, and the broader cultural obsession with instant self-insight.