Dueling Taxonomies: How We Create and Consume Comics, Games, and Other Media

I love taxonomies. That is to say, describing, naming, and arranging things into categories. I'm quite happy spending hours sorting things into categories. For those familiar with the lumper vs splitter distinction, I'm definitely a splitter. The more categories I have to work with, the merrier. (Though only to a point- truly pure lumping or splitting leads only to madness.)

So of course I was fairly delighted the first time I encountered Bartle's Taxonomy.

[Image source]

Bartle's Taxonomy divides gamers into four general types. Explorers, Achievers, Killers, Socializers. These aren't exclusive types- players tend to have traits from multiple camps.

• Explorers are players who, well, like to explore the game. Someone who frequently wanders off the main story in a game exploring side areas is a great example. (The appeal of Skyrim to an Explorer should be obvious.) They like to find ways to do things the programmers didn't intend the game to do, or find strange combinations of equipment and abilities that the metagame is unaware of or uninterested in.

• Achievers, in a nutshell, want to get the high score. They want the best equipment, the highest level, and to unlock all the achievements. They want to battle the secret bosses or beat a game at 100%.

• Socializers are playing the game to have fun with other people. They're the ones organizing guilds, just hanging out in public areas, etc. For single player games, they're often attracted to Mass Effect or Baldur's Gate style RPGs that have lots of interaction with party members.

• Killers want to mess with other people. They want to do pvp, cause mayhem, break the rules, and sometimes even enjoy making the game un-fun for others. (Though not always.)

While Bartle's taxonomy is most relevant to games like MMORPGs, it can, to an extent, be applied to any game. If it wasn't obvious, I'm primarily an Explorer, then an Achiever, then a Socializer. I'm not a Killer. (If you can't immediately name what you are, you can take the Bartle Taxonomy classification test here.) Bartle's Taxonomy types are what is known as psychographic profiles. Anyone who has played Magic: The Gathering is probably familiar with another such group of psychographic profile- Johnny, Timmy, and Spike. Psychographic profiling has extensive use beyond gaming, of course. It's absolutely key to advertising- one of the best ways to target advertisements is by generating psychographic profiles for consumers.

I'd like to share another taxonomy with you as well- McCloud's Taxonomy of Comic Book Creators. (He never calls it this, but that's what it is. He just refers to it as the four tribes of comic book creators.) For those unfamiliar with him, McCloud is generally considered a pioneer and one of the leading voices in developing a critical theory for comics. He's also the author of my favorite graphic novel, The Sculptor. McCloud breaks down comic book creators into four categories- Classicists, Animists, Formalists, and Iconoclasts. It can be applied to creators in other artforms as well, to more or less success.

• Classicists want to create a the most perfect work of art possible. They're out to create as close to a perfect work of art as they can, and trying to master their craft. Neil Gaiman, Jim Lee, and Craig Thompson are all Classicists in their own ways.

• Animists are concerned with putting their stories or ideas first. The art and writing is there to serve the message, and not the other way around. Jeff Smith, Brian K. Vaughn, and Jack Kirby are all Animists. This is probably the dominant group.

• Formalists are obsessed with experimenting with their medium's chosen form- whether comics or otherwise. They like pushing the boundaries and understanding how it all works. Scott McCloud, Matt Fraction, and Art Spiegelman are all fairly Formalist.

• Iconoclasts are the rebels of the creative world. They want to show the world honestly, warts and all. They delight in poking holes in the affectations of the other camps. R Crumb, Derf Backderf, Allison Bechdel, Craig Thompson, and Art Spiegelman are great examples of Iconoclasts.

Like Bartle's Taxonomy, most creators tend to lie in multiple camps, though they tend to have one they spend the most time in. (Notice how some of the examples I list are in multiple camps?) I'm a Formalist/Animist, an unusual combination. This is because McCloud's diagonal camps tend to oppose each other a little more strongly than Bartle's. Classicists are unlikely to also be Iconoclasts, and Animists are usually unlikely to be Formalists, due to oppositions in what they want out of their creations. Classicists and Formalists are both concerned with form over content, while the other two are more concerned with content over form. Formalists and Iconoclasts are more concerned with trying new things, while the other two are more concerned with tradition. Diagonal combinations aren't banned, just less likely. This opposition still exists in Bartle's Taxonomy- Explorers are least likely to be Killers, as in my case. Achievers are less likely to be Socializers. The opposition does seem less pronounced than in McCloud's Taxonomy, though. Remember- psychographic profiles are fundamentally meant to describe existing traits. If someone shows up that seems to defy it, it's up to the profiles to accommodate them, not the other way around.

(A fun, though tangential story- McCloud was extremely concerned about exacerbating divisions and causing feuds with his taxonomy. There are, however, quite a few anecdotal stories of existing frictions between comic creators easing up when they figured out where they lay in it, and realizing that they just wanted different things out of creating comics than the creator they weren't getting along with, and often ended up getting along better or even becoming friends with them. Understanding differences is a good thing, folks.)

Well worth reading if you have any interest in making comics, along with its predecessor Understanding Comics. [Image source]

There is, of course, an immediate resemblance between the two psychographic profile charts. They both have four categories that are both arranged the same way. They both have dichotomous axis. Both seem widely applicable beyond their initial targets- Bartle's taxonomy can be applied with varying success to any form of media consumption or participatory activity, and McCloud's can be applied with varying success to any form of creation. You can even fairly easily correspond the categories. Explorer/Formalist is the strongest and most obvious correspondence. I'd argue that the others are Killer/Iconoclast, Achiever/Classicist, and Socializer/Animist. This is where the most interesting question of the whole business rises up for me- and the reason that I chose these two specific taxonomies. Namely- is there a correspondence between the psychographic profiles for creation and for consumption of media?

To phrase it more universally, do we create for the same reasons we consume? Well, let's look at my psychographic profiles. My Formalist and Explorer primary tendencies definitely correspond, but my Achiever and Animist secondary tendencies? Much less so. When discussing this with my brother, we decided he was an Explorer/Killer in games, but a Formalist/Classicist creatively. (He cooks instead of creating comics- he's really into molecular gastronomy and such. Also, I'll fight anyone who wants to say cooking isn't art.) He's also a wash. So... from this really small data set, we can't really draw any conclusions. Which is probably a good thing, because you really shouldn't draw any conclusions from small data sets if humanly possible. My hypothesis is that there's definitely some correspondence, almost certainly a decent bit of correlation, probably no causation. Or, to put it more simply- most people probably create in a similar method to how they consume, but it's no guarantee. (Similar things can be said for what they prefer to create and consume.)

I can't say anything firmly with my data set, though. So, well... I'm going to do a really informal, not overly rigorous scientific study. I'm sure it would irritate actual research psychologists, especially because I don't have to deal with their ridiculously strict ethics guidelines, and also because it's usually bad form to tell research subjects in psychology what's being studied precisely, lest their knowledge taint things. I'm not a research psychologist, though- I'm an on-again off-again geology student. (A geologish!) I hit rocks with hammers. Also lick rocks and pour acid on them. Research psychologists would get in so much trouble for doing this with any of their research subjects. So much trouble. I promise I'm not going to hit any of you with hammers or pour acid on you, and it's extremely unlikely I'm going to lick you. I'm quite picky about that last one, if you're not a rock. (If you're interested in why geologists lick rocks, you're in luck- that's my next post!)

So if you're interested in participating in this informal study, here's what I want to know:

• What psychographic profiles do you fit into on Bartle's Taxonomy, and approximately in what proportion? If you can, give your affiliation with each a score out of ten, but don't feel obligated to- I'd be hard-pressed to do so. If you don't feel you fit into these profiles, that's pretty common- just say so.
• What psychographic profiles do you fit into on McCloud's Taxonomy, and approximately in what proportion? If you can, give your affiliation with each a score out of ten, but don't feel obligated to- I'd be hard-pressed to do so. If you don't feel you fit into these profiles, that's pretty common- just say so.
• How closely do you correspond on your profiles between the two taxonomies? Do they match exactly, are they extremely different, or what?
• What are your thoughts on whether there is a correspondence, correlation, or even causation between the ways we consume and produce content? Not a very scientific question, I know, but a useful one.
• If you disagree with the correspondences I've assigned, or anything else about the framework of my ideas here, please let me know- it'll probably be super useful for me.

Remember that, above all else here, psychographic profiles are a way of simplifying people, of making them legible. They don't define anything about who you are as a person, and people that defy them are incredibly common. Tools of description should never be used to try to force reality to conform- therein lies the greatest dangers of positivism. Descriptions must conform to reality, no matter how messy or illogical reality gets.

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Bibliography:

• Understanding Comics, by Scott McCloud
• Making Comics, by Scott McCloud
• The Aesthetic of Play, by Brian Upton
• https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Bartle_taxonomy_of_player_types
• https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Psychographics
• http://artandperception.com/2008/01/classicist-animist-formalist-iconoclast.html
• https://www.gamasutra.com/view/feature/6474/personality_and_play_styles_a_.php?print=1
• http://thinkinggrounds.blogspot.com/2010/07/arts-four-campfires.html
• http://thinkinggrounds.blogspot.com/2010/08/arts-four-campfires-and-literature-part.html
• http://www.raintaxi.com/making-comics-and-communitiesthe-influence-of-scott-mccloud/
• https://magic.wizards.com/en/articles/archive/making-magic/timmy-johnny-and-spike-2013-12-03
• https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Lumpers_and_splitters
• https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Taxonomy