The "My Type" Trend on TikTok Determines How Well the Algorithm Knows you

There are plenty of TikTok videos out there that describe a person's type. Essentially, these videos take a figure from pop culture and use them to describe a person's taste in a potential partner, whether it's the person's attitude, their looks, or some combination of the two.

While those videos have existed for years, a new trend involves figuring out which of those videos will surface for you. Here's what we know about the "My Type" trend taking over the platform and where it originated.

The "My Type" trend taking over the platform involves typing the words "my type" into the TikTok search bar and seeing which videos pop up for you. In theory, the TikTok algorithm should know you well enough to know which type of video to surface, and will therefore find a video that describes your tastes. While the trend hasn't worked that way for everyone, there are plenty of people who have discovered that TikTok knows them almost frighteningly well.

One person did the trend and discovered that Milo Ventimiglia's character Jess from Gilmore Girls was their type, responding to that discovery with "I'm unwell," which seems to suggest that Jess is, in fact, her type. Of course, all the trend really is is filming your screen as you search for "my type" and see what comes up, and then filming your reaction to what you find. It's as straightforward as TikTok trends get.

It's been reported for years that the TikTok algorithm appears to know some users better than they know themselves. There have been instances where users discovered their sexuality through the videos that were being served to them on the platform, even before they had discovered that sexuality themselves. Of course, the "My Type" trend isn't quite that extreme, but it suggests that TikTok has a solid sense of what your romantic preferences might be.

Of course, TikTok doesn't really know you. What it has at its disposal is an incredibly sophisticated algorithm that reduces all of your preferences down into an equation so that it can feed you content that it feels confident you'll like. The truth is, when you search basically any term, you're likely to find videos that resonate with you, especially if you're someone who uses the app often.

The "My Type" trend exploits that reality in a very specific way, serving up a video made by someone else who has similar preferences to yours. The reason TikTok's showing you that video is not because it knows what type of partner you're looking for. It's because TikTok knows how to feed you what you want for any given search term.

That doesn't make it less unsettling to discover that, when you search the term, it knows what to give you, and it's interesting to see what TikTok thinks of you. But you probably shouldn't start asking the algorithm for advice.