A meme-style personality quiz called SBTI has flooded Chinese social media with screenshot results labeled in slang-heavy, self-mocking terms. At first glance, it looks like another version of MBTI. In practice, it works more like a fast-moving internet joke built out of mood, irony, and online shorthand. On April 9, searches for “sbti” on WeChat Index hit 40.85 million, while related discussions reportedly surpassed 20 million across social platforms.
A joke built on a familiar format
Part of the appeal starts with the name itself. “SB” is shorthand for shabi, a crude and strongly offensive Chinese insult, which gives SBTI an irreverent tone from the outset. The quiz then builds on one of the internet’s most recognizable formats: answer a set of questions, get a four-letter type, and share it as a social label.
But unlike MBTI’s relatively polished personality categories, SBTI delivers labels that feel closer to memes, moods, and exaggerated online archetypes. It uses the familiar shell of personality typing, but strips away most of the seriousness. The result is something that feels less like a tool for self-understanding and more like an instantly legible social joke.
More meme than personality test
That also helps explain why people got it so quickly. SBTI does not really try to tell users who they are in any stable or psychological sense. It works more like a snapshot of how they feel they are functioning at a given moment. The labels are funny, a little absurd, and sometimes a little harsh, but that is also what makes them so shareable.
People repost them less as formal self-assessments than as quick, recognizable jokes about their current state. The appeal lies less in accuracy than in recognition: users see the label, laugh, and feel that it somehow fits. In that sense, SBTI behaves more like a meme than a personality framework.
The creator, a Bilibili uploader known as “蛆肉儿串儿,” has said the quiz was made for entertainment, that she is not a psychology professional, and that the current version is only an early one.
According to the original Chinese article, the project began as an attempt to persuade a friend to stop drinking, and even included a hidden “drunk” personality type. That has not stopped it from spreading. If anything, SBTI’s appeal seems to lie in how little seriousness it asks from users: it takes the shell of MBTI and turns it into a low-stakes way to say, this is what my current state looks like online.
