If you’ve ever found yourself aimlessly scrolling through social media and stumbling across a “Which __ are you?” post, or doing trivial BuzzFeed quizzes to figure out which Harry Potter house you belong in, or even delved slightly deeper into Enneagrams, or the Myers-Briggs, you may have been engaging in some form of personality typology. The mere fact that these rituals have become a new rite of passage for our generation is proof that, despite an increasingly homogenising online community, our innate desire to figure out who we are and what sets us apart still shines through.
I, myself, have found that I am guilty of all of the above (for what it’s worth, I’m an INTJ, 5w4, Ravenclaw-Slytherin hybrid, Type A personality, who’s still trying to figure out her DISC type). It comes as no surprise that regardless of our walks of life, backgrounds, beliefs, or otherwise, these systems never quite feel like a final answer. Maybe it’s because they force us into boxes when we’re still growing into new shapes. Or perhaps it’s because every time we revisit them, we answer differently; not because we’re inconsistent, but because we’ve changed. Because we’ve been changed. These answers, then, act less like labels and more like mirrors, reflecting fragments of everyone we’ve ever met and loved.
Still, whether these people remain in our lives or not, we subconsciously carry traces of them with us wherever we go: mannerisms, phrases, preferences, or perspectives that become embedded in our identity. They enter and alter our brain chemistry, and suddenly, someone else’s coffee order is now the one you always crave, or their favourite phrase slips into your speech like second nature.
Cue Language Nerd Ramblings™ (can I trademark this?): This would not be a Maryam AlKetbi piece without some sort of reference to languages (apologies in advance, I’m a languages student trying desperately to find beacons of joy in her degree by reading about linguistics for fun). These ‘mosaics’ that we acquire are not just emotional or figments of our imagination, but are in fact, linguistic (and scientifically backed too). Giles’ ‘Accommodation Theory’, prevalent in the field of sociolinguistics, suggests that we subconsciously adjust our language, a process known as convergence, to reduce the social distance between ourselves and others.
Yet while language is, at its core, a tool for communication, it’s also a quiet architect of identity. The more we mirror others, their turns of phrase, their rhythm, even their slang, the more these features begin to settle into who we are. They’re not always consciously chosen, but over time, they shape how we are perceived and how we perceive ourselves.
And yet, there are parts of our linguistic selves that run deeper. In my case, the rhythm of my Arabic, shaped by an Emirati upbringing and a Bedouin heritage rooted in oral storytelling, sits alongside the Oxford cadence I’ve slowly absorbed. They don’t cancel each other out. If anything, they speak to one another.
This is where language becomes more than a mirror; it becomes a record of where we’ve been, and who we’ve been with.
My previous article, “What Makes Somewhere Home?”, led to discussions about the concept of home itself, and how it is ultimately an act of belonging not entirely tied to the tactile and physical. My own fragments of home at Oxford have become these little tidbits I have picked up from those I love: the new studio edition of Southern Nights, now a part of my morning playlist; the air of confident whimsy I get from frolicking hand-in-hand with my best friends on the High Street; or the silly debates over dinner in Wadh-hall over whether scrambled eggs should be microwaved or pan-cooked (team pan… the only correct answer). These small things accumulate quietly, and you only begin to notice them when you pause and reflect: I can’t frolick down the same High Street back home, nor can I absurdly question someone’s breakfast method, and yet I tell these stories to my friends from home as if they’re essential to understanding me.
And in that moment, I wonder: how much of ‘me’ is merely an echo of all the people I’ve loved? These pockets of identity that we gather from people are not bound by distance, time, or space, but we pick them up at every step.
Referring back to the concept of “social media as a homogenising force”, one could argue both sides of the coin. On the one hand, social media has made us more interconnected than ever, allowing ideas and trends to spread at incomprehensible speeds. On the other hand, the rise of the word “aesthetic” seemed to open Pandora’s box — put it in combination with any other word(s) and all of a sudden you have created an entirely new archetype; ‘Clean Girl’, ‘Dark Academia’, ‘Cottagecore’ with accompanying fashion, music, hobbies, and even colour palettes, all curated to perform a version of the self.
Whilst these aesthetics are neither environmentally nor economically friendly, they have become integral to our generation. Yet the irony, of course, behind such aesthetics is that they entice us with the illusion of individuality, while asking us to conform to carefully marketed identities. In shaping ourselves, we end up choosing pre-assembled selves.
Aesthetics comes with a voice too; many of us on social media spend time curating the perfect caption to align with a chosen vibe. It is a reminder that we perform these newly acquired identities not just visually, but verbally. Linguist Asif Agha’s concept of Enregisterment explores this: how particular ways of speaking become tied to specific identities or social roles. Whether it’s the clean-girl softness of lowercase captions and oat milk lattes or the sharp edges of the ‘academic voice’ that quotes Camus and Dostoyevsky, our language becomes part of the aesthetic we embody.
And just like aesthetics, these voices—the soft, the sharp, the curated—aren’t always ours to begin with. We collect them the way we collect references, accents, or inside jokes. They slip into our sentences and shape the way we present ourselves until one day we don’t remember where we end and they begin.
We speak of ‘finding ourselves’ in a never-ending debate of ‘inherited vs acquired’ identity, but who are we, if not a mosaic of what we’ve absorbed?
Maybe I haven’t found myself fully.
Maybe I’ve just been collecting her, piece by piece.