Gerard Way (My Chemical Romance) -INFP
One of the things that I love about Gerard’s music is how conceptual it is; everything is part of some idea that’s greater than the music itself. All of MCR’s albums are (allegedly) concept albums, and even his solo record has somehow managed to go from being ‘just about the music’ to a whole inter-galactic culture with its own ‘persona’ and cheesy TV shows. Ne is all about ideas; it’s known for being an explosion of original and quirky abstractions that quickly spiral out of control. All of Gerard’s projects build into something more than themselves; the Black Parade isn’t just the name of an album, but an alter-ego band that guides a man named the Patient into the necropolis. What started out as a few songs turned into an entire futuristic culture complete with costumes and comic books. This is the man who actually called his band an idea. To him, the whole is more than the sum of its parts. Gerard himself describes his creativity as the process of taking mundane things and making them interesting; he loves experimenting and his ideas just naturally seem to get weird and gain scope. ‘What’s automatic for me is ideas.’ The one thing that an Ne user will never lack is inspiration, because they constantly draw it from the world around them and expand it into something greater.
Like all Fi users, Gerard is also known for his celebration of individuality and eccentricity. Nothing is more important than remaining authentic to yourself, and upholding your personal values and the causes you are personally passionate about. Although this can come across as self-centered on paper, Fi is actually a powerful altruistic force. The whole point of MCR was to give hope and affirmation to people who were depressed, and steer them away from addiction and suicide, an issue and a demographic that Gerard connected with because he had gone through their same struggles. Instead of coming at it from a universal perspective of empathy (Fe), he worked to help people based on his personal feelings from personal experience (that’s Si). His Fi also shows through in scrapping long-term plans for a more, er…*conventional* album and starting again in a completely different direction (one that revolved around his new, healthier state of mind), or making a style of music that is incredibly unpopular and not likely to be commercially successful. Inferior Te doesn’t really care about that; it foregoes status and objective success for a personal feeling of worth and authenticity. The interview with him shows this really well; he didn’t want to do what ‘went against what’s in line with myself as an artist’ and his advice is to ‘be yourself and just do that.’ Individualism comes before everything else. He also expresses his distaste with the regimented music business, and how structure feels like a prison to him.
Interview:
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=yhl4sipTN04
It’s also worth noting that Gerard has a strong sense of empathy (as in literally feeling other’s pain, being an emotional conduit), which is typically associated with Fe. But the way I see it, that’s a behavior, not a part of cognition. It’s just the way he’s wired, not an actual motivation or method of thinking.
This.
