Who knew those little doodles in your notebook could reveal so much about your generation?

We’ve all done it. We’ve all drawn hearts. We’ve filled pages with them when we should’ve been learning how to square numbers in math class. Whether you want to admit it or not, we know there are a fair number of you that carefully outlined your initials along with that special someone’s inside that heart. Maybe you’ve even drawn heart-shaped nipples, like that Uniqlo campaign.

Your method of heart-drawing is typically set in stone sometime in junior high school. When you ask a room full of people of different ages to sketch a heart, you will probably get very different results. Maybe those results will even start a fight. At our sister site YouPouch, Japanese staff decided to test something out with those scribbles: can you guess how old someone is by the way they doodle hearts?

YouPouch’s staff includes women in their 20s, 30s, and 40s. What they found is that heart drawing style does, in fact, vary by age. You might be surprised at their drawing influences.

In the photo above, you’ll notice that YouPouch staff in their 20s tend to draw their hearts on the long and narrow side. They were most harshly criticized by their older peers, who found something lacking in its shape.

Staff in their 30s sketch hearts that are round and short. Other staff remarked that it reminded them of Japanese gyaru fashion (Mr. Sato, anyone?).

As for staff in their 40s? Their hearts lack the traditional point at the bottom, and also come with two lines sketched on the side. When asked specifically about the lines, staff replied that they were influenced by the popular idol group Onyanko Club (the predecessors of AKB48), where one of the members added this unique heart to the end of one of their comments.

So, how do you draw your hearts? Are they long and narrow? Short and round? Do they have…whiskers? Maybe if we get enough submissions from readers, we can conduct our own test!
[ Read in Japanese ]