If you’ve been loafing around the internet during the last week, there’s a good chance you’ve taken the bread quiz. Not since the Myers-Briggs Type Indicator — or at least, the Describe Yourself In 3 Fictional Characters challenge — has one personality test so aptly captured a generation. Also: bread. Everyone loves bread.
But no one loves bread like Liz White, the 25-year-old college admissions employee in Georgia who cooked up the viral quiz and got none of the credit. She created the test using Photoshop during a slow day at work and posted it to her Tumblr on January 26. “At the time, there were a lot of Tag Yourself memes going around,” Liz says. “I love bread and have this bread Instagram account, so I thought, I should make one with bread. Of course! ”
Liz based the nine bread personalities on her own friends, and would like to set the record straight once and for all that she is ride-or-die French bread. Her least favorite bread? Whole grain; no offense to anyone who doesn’t use his or her blinkers. (Liz also sends her heartfelt apologies to the gluten-free population, but hey, they’re used to missing out on delicious baked goods.)
The original bread personality quiz quickly racked up a number of reblogs and notes, and currently has 58,644 likes on Tumblr. But it didn’t go viral until an 18-year-old Twitter user/croissant named @kellyblaus posted the image on September 26.
Immediately, a number of news outlets including BuzzFeed, The Daily Mail, and Refinery29 shared the tweet. Many pontificated on the internet’s hunger for a carb-based identity and inherent bread bias, but no one confirmed whether @kellyblaus had actually made the quiz. She just automatically got credit — and thousands of likes, retweets, and new followers — as the owner of the image.
Liz discovered her bread test had gone viral when a friend retweeted it and identified herself as challah. Soon, other friends started sharing clips. Internet fame, or lack thereof, was bittersweet. “It’s cool that the quiz got all this attention,” Liz says. “But seeing something you made with someone else’s name attached isn’t a great feeling.”
To be fair, @kellyblaus never claimed she created the bread test, and most of the articles about it didn’t report that she did, either. She merely shared it at the right place and right time. There’s a good chance @kellyblaus didn’t even know where it came from. Unless you’re a celebrity, attribution on the internet is more of a courtesy than a law.
Liz has reached out to @kellyblaus on Twitter to ask for credit, but she hasn’t heard back. (Refinery29 also messaged her for comment with no luck.) Liz has also identified herself as the quiz creator in various comments sections online. “I have friends who are artists and writers, and I get so mad when I see their stuff reposted without credit,” Liz says. “I think in the future, I’ll use a watermark or put my handle on anything I make.”
The future, as in, another potential bread test. The internet’s ready, Liz. Make it happen.
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