Because it’s 2022 and TikTok is our unquestioned guide for how things work , we’d like to present you with the latest TikTok thought experiment for your consideration: the forest question.
What’s the forest question, you ask? Depending on your perspective, it’s either the latest dumb TikTok trend, or a profound meditation that will offer deep and perhaps unsettling insights into your partner’s psyche.
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You remember the strawberry question, right?
We’ll get to the forest question soon, I promise. But understanding the strawberry question offers some insights into TikTok thought experiments in general . This is a simple question with follow-ups that get more and more complicated.
Are there right or wrong answers?
It’s really up to you whether the answers are right or wrong. For the Strawberry Question, ask someone if they would eat a strawberry off of a tree if they were hungry.
If their answer is ‘no,’ the quiz ends. But if their answer is ‘yes,’ follow-up questions include “What if there was a fence?” and “Would you jump over it?”
Apparently answering ‘yes’ to both questions means a person is more likely to cheat on their partner.
The forest question is a natural extension of the strawberry question.
A quick search reveals that the forest question is currently dominating TikTok . Now that you understand the strawberry question, you’re better equipped to understand that we’re dealing with some real pseudo-psychological nonsense here.
Turns out it doesn’t have much to do with forests.
Once again, the forest question is designed to get to the heart of how someone deals with relationships. Once again, I have my doubts that the answers will actually reveal anything deep.
So what are the questions?
They’re pretty simple, and should all be answered from the perspective of someone who’s walking in a forest.
-What’s the first animal you see?
-What’s the second animal you see?
-You see a hut. You can walk past, knock to get in, or just go in. What do you do?
-You see a jug. Is it full, half full or empty?
As you can see in this TikTok , things get off the rails pretty easily.
What’s the actual point here?
Here goes:
-The answer to the first question supposedly represents how the person sees themselves.
-The answer to the second question supposedly represents how the person sees their partner.
-The answer to the third question supposedly represents how ready the person is to enter a relationship.
-The answer to the fourth question supposedly represents how much they love their partner.
I don’t buy it.
The game was popularized on TikTok, but game from a book called Kokology: The Game of Self-Discovery , written by Tadahiko Nagao and Isamu Saito.
Fun thought experiments aside, it’s worth stressing the fact that this philosophy deals with dream interpretation and archetype theory and has no scientific support . It’s also worth noting that thought experiments in a self-help book may be helpful on an individual level, but don’t scale well when turned into a TikTok trend.
There have to be better ways to assess a relationship.
Sure, asking ‘how in love with me are you?’ might be a tad blunt, but most people can likely get a better read of their relationship by just going with their gut, rather than asking their partners questions about jugs of water that aren’t actually about jugs of water.
What do you think?
We’ve been pretty hard on the whole forest question, but because we love chaos, here’s a challenge: ask your partner the four questions, then tell us what they said in the comments, then check in a few days later to tell us whether you’re still in a relationship with them.
