Where did this insult come from that implicitly says the goal of life is to have as many personality traits as possible. https://twitter.com/warlocktrash/status/1380303695829561344

I think "personality trait" is supposed to mean like, "interesting thing about you".

I think I've known people who had a few too many personality traits. You know, like, "take one accessory off", but for personality traits.

I think it's successful as an insult because it's very vague. I mean the meanest insults are, right. "Check out this guy without a personality!" "Shut up, I...I have a personality!" "Oh yeah? Crying isn't a personality."

If you were arrested for having a personality, would there be enough evidence to convict you.

Someday someone will explain what IS a personality.

Ok let's unpack this. If you say "hey, X isn't a personality trait", what you're saying is, "the person or people I am directing this insult to are making too big a deal out of X, they talk about X too much, where X is something banal, commonplace, or uninteresting". Right?

But really, it works because you can say it about anything. "Liking salsa dancing isn't a personality", "learning classical Arabic isn't a personality", "volunteering at a homeless shelter isn't a personality", those all sound about equivalently coherent and mean to me.

It's like "performatively". You can just put that into anything too. "I'm sick of people who like Lil Nas X", hm, no, hold on, "I'm sick of people PERFORMATIVELY liking Lil Nas X", there we go, that's a thing you can say.

..."performatively liking Lil Nas X isn't a personality", now we're cooking with gas.

And "X isn't a personality" is particularly mean because just in general, "dismissing what someone else is enthusiastic about" is one of the ruder things you can do, socially, I think. Not what we haven't all been on both sides.

Like if you want...a divorce, start peppering your conversation with your partner with "honey, that isn't a personality".

You know who has a personality?