What your favourite public intellectual says about you

What your favourite public intellectual says about you:

Michael Foucault – you smoked three cigarettes before breakfast this morning. When people encourage you to quit, you tell them that being healthy is reactionary. You unironically own a beret.

Noam Chomsky – if you are unsure of whose side to take in an international conflict, you argue for the opposite of whatever your dad thinks. You have at least two self-diagnosed anxiety disorders. You are secretly terrified that your leftist friends will catch you in a Starbucks one day.

Jordan Peterson - you consider yourself ‘somewhat of an intellectual’ because you have read Nineteen Eighty Four, a book that is often assigned to ninth-graders. The message you got from the book is that socialism sucks; when a friend points out to you that Orwell was a proud socialist, you get embarrassed, then write an extended rant about them on Reddit the following evening. You have no idea what postmodernism is, but it’s definitely the reason your life is bad.

Slavoj Zizek – you once had an extended argument with your friends where you insisted you could win a fight with a gorilla. You have never combed your hair.

Richard Dawkins – you have, at some point, called a good 60-80% of your immediate family “sheep”. You may also have made baa-ing noises at them. You’re not quite sure why people seem to dislike you.

Neil deGrasse Tyson – you correct people on their use of the word ‘literally’. Your social media feed is entirely made up of reposted material from “SCIENCE IS MUTHAFUCKIN AWESOME” and recipes that feature “epic” amounts of bacon. You have never gone longer than nine hours without making a derogatory comment about the social sciences.

Germaine Greer – all your relationships ended because your partner didn’t rub your feet enough. You tried to be a lesbian but could only manage the above-the-waist stuff.

Sam Harris – you call yourself a ‘sapiosexual’ in your Tinder bio. You sincerely believe that sapiosexuals are the most oppressed sexuality there is, and have considered taking a case to the Supreme Court about it.

Trevor Noah/John Oliver – you are incapable of reposting a video without adding a comment such as “This is so important”, or possibly something involving the handclap emoji. You are passionate about politics, just not to the extent that you would attend a protest, or sign a petition, or anything more involved than watching a Netflix documentary. You have a folder full of gifs of sassy black women, which you post automatically in response to any Trump tweet.

Pope Francis – you are a Catholic. That’s all.