Feels like, because of the way that media and culture is experienced in the modern day, I find myself looking for certain “types” of people. That’s not to say I’m ignoring people’s individuality or reducing them to caricatures, but there’s definitely certain grooves that people fall into. Crypto guy is a type of guy, for example. They’re not all the same, but they’ve got some very distinct and shared characteristics. I think, though, that some of these “types” of people are completely made up and do not exist in a substantial way. Most often, I think that these false typings come from sexual fantasy, objectification, and even a form of commodity fetishism. I think this is a huge part of online culture. It ranges from the “___ gf” kind of images to the starter pack meme format to whatever else you might find. Then there’s the middle ground. My best example of that would be the idea of the egirl. There’s definitely some people who could be categorized as authentic practitioners who simply are that way, but are generally exploded out of proportion because you can literally make a career being a content creator with that sort of persona and that sort of content gets plastered everywhere.

That’s the normal level of unhealthy internet culture you’d expect, but I find myself struggling to differentiate between reality and the fiction of the internet. I might say a certain type of person is blown out of proportion by media and aren’t that common since I never encounter them in my real life, but that logic doesn’t hold any better than the idea that asian people are mostly fake because I haven’t met very many. This starts being an issue when it shapes my expectations of people around me. “I wish I knew more people who had this kind of vibe. Wait, is that a real type of person? Is it just shallow bullshit I’m looking for for aesthetic reasons? Do people actually act like that? Do they really act/think like that, or are they just as internet poisoned as I am? Are there secretly lots of hot goth girls in New York but not Salt Lake City? Is that why the real estate is so expensive, or is it the other way around?” It really makes me feel like I am losing touch with reality in a way that is maybe not healthy, especially when it comes to looking for a partner. Often feels rather misogynistic in a way I can’t put my finger on, too.

TL;DR how do you all differentiate between actual types of people and vague collections of biases?

Edit: I don’t know why I worded this so poorly, but the notion I was looking for was a subculture. I think there are subcultures that are, to varying degrees, inorganic and overrepresented, but there is no way to have empirical data about the representation of such a vague notion of a subculture.