Nobody has a personality anymore: we are products with labels
Scope of the Problem: Exaggeration vs Real Trend
- Many commenters see the article as overstated and very online: this kind of “therapy-speak identity” is viewed as concentrated in youth culture, TikTok/Instagram, certain US urban milieus, and not how “most people” talk offline.
- Others—especially parents of teens—say the piece matches their lived reality: friend groups constantly using diagnostic or attachment language, and viewing quirks through a clinical lens.
Labels, Diagnosis, and Self-Understanding
- Several people describe receiving diagnoses (ADHD, autism, prosopagnosia, trauma) as life-changing: it reduced shame, explained lifelong struggles, and enabled self-compassion, community, and treatment.
- Others argue that many now seek labels for mild traits or ordinary suffering, often via self-diagnosis and TikTok “symptom” videos; they see fashion, status-seeking, or a desire for excuses rather than help.
- There is debate over whether disorders are spectra that everyone sits on vs categorical thresholds where life is substantially impaired. The DSM’s role, overdiagnosis, and weak scientific foundations of some psychology are criticized.
Pathologizing Personality and Everyday Behavior
- Concern that generosity, eccentricity, or being “quirky” are reinterpreted as people-pleasing, attachment styles, or neurodivergence, hollowing out older ideas of character.
- Some argue the new vocabulary can distinguish helpful from harmful versions of traits (e.g., generous vs self-erasing), but agree social media collapses nuance into diagnostic vibes and identity badges.
- Comparison is made to MBTI, astrology, and tropes: systematizing tools that can become cages if turned into identity.
Responsibility, Agency, and Victimhood
- Strong thread about labels being used to evade accountability (“time blindness,” anger issues, etc.): once something is named, some treat it as a license rather than a problem to manage.
- Others counter that recognizing ADHD, depression, or trauma helps people stop seeing themselves as morally defective, and that many still work hard to compensate.
- Compatibilist arguments appear: even if causes are deterministic, holding people responsible (and expecting effort) still shapes behavior.
Social Context: Support Systems, Capitalism, and Algorithms
- Some say therapy-speak fills a vacuum left by weakened families, communities, and religion; others insist those “support systems” historically failed many neurodivergent and abused people.
- There’s recurring blame on late capitalism, schooling, screens, and algorithmic feeds that amplify self-diagnosis and identity content, while discouraging deeper structural critiques.