Stephen Colbert answered two of fans’ burning questions at once in a segment earlier this week. The first, of course is “who is Stephen Colbert?” beyond the blustery conservative persona he assumed for years on Jon Stewart’s show and his own. The second is in the service of the first: what’s his Myers-Briggs type?
Rather than being lazy like the rest of the internet and noodling around with various online quizzes (although he did take a pot shot at Buzzfeed’s “Which late night host are you?” quiz — he was a Kimmel), Colbert got a hilariously earnest certified Myers-Briggs tester to come in and administer the test. And despite his attempts to derail the process with jokes about his own fame and Johnny Depp, he finally got his results: an INFP. As an ENFP whose “E” lingers close to the borderline with “I” I say to Stephen, welcome, fellow-traveler.
While MBTI devotees online were extremely psyched (seriously) to discuss and debate Stephen’s participation in their system, the real joy of the segment was that the new Stephen seemed a lot like the old Stephen throughout — mostly through his joy at uncovering a slightly absurd subset of American life and thought. His delight in discovering MBTI types and mining as much humor from it was palpable. Watch the segment below: