\n<\/p>\n
Issa Schultz has a daily schedule that not many could compete with.<\/p>\n
\u201cI get up, I make a coffee, I go on the computer and I do quizzes. I take a break for lunch and then get back on the computer for more quizzes,\u201d he says. \u201cIt sounds like an illness, and others may diagnose it as that, but I am that obsessed. It\u2019s not an exaggeration to say I treat it as an eight-hour job \u2013 a full-time day.\u201d<\/p>\n
Schultz is Australia\u2019s #1 ranked quizzer, the name for the people who take trivia very seriously. It\u2019s a hobby he\u2019s structured his entire life around. For about six weeks a year, Schultz films the Channel 7 show The Chase Australia, where he serves as one of the quizshow\u2019s \u201cchasers\u201d \u2013 the experts whom contestants must topple if they want to take home the prize money (his nickname on the show, fittingly, is The Supernerd). The rest of the time, he\u2019s just brushing up on his African capitals, AFL drafts or Academy Award winners.<\/p>\n
\u201cWhat I should be doing is going out and doing other work, like a normal human being,\u201d he laughs. \u201cBut hey, I\u2019m a single man. I don\u2019t have a family. I have no responsibilities \u2026 I\u2019m in this unique situation where I have the time.\u201d<\/p>\n
<\/span>Schultz as the Supernerd on the Channel 7 show The Chase Australia.<\/span> Photograph: The Chase<\/p>\n And it could be worse: \u201cThere are people, especially in the UK and USA, who are devoting even more hours to this than I am.\u201d<\/p>\n Quizzing is a niche but global pursuit, undertaken everywhere from North America to Europe and India, where it\u2019s particularly popular. You might think of it as a step above pub trivia, particularly in terms of difficulty: Schultz used to play in pub teams seven days a week before levelling up. \u201cWhen you get to international quizzing, pub trivia just isn\u2019t obscure enough,\u201d he says.<\/p>\n In quizzing, typical questions might span the relatively straightforward (\u201cWho was the military dictator of Chile from 1973 to 1990?\u201d) through to more cryptic tasks, like naming the word that links a series of seemingly disparate images.<\/p>\n And instead of taking place inside a rowdy watering hole, most of the time quizzing is undertaken in silence or solitude. The biggest event on the annual quizzing calendar is the World Quizzing Championships, held each June, where quizzers have two hours to write out their answers to questions read by a proctor in an exam-style in-person setting; as of 2024, Australia also has its own national championship, which was most recently held in February with venues in Sydney, Melbourne, Perth and Brisbane. These competitions \u2013 which come with zero prize money \u2013 determine the national and global quizzer rankings, but devotees will also find other smaller competitions and Zoom leagues to keep busy with \u2013 and, as Schultz so diligently does, devote spare time to brushing up on their general knowledge.<\/p>\n <\/span>\u2018When you get to international quizzing, pub trivia just isn\u2019t obscure enough\u2019: Issa Schultz.<\/span> Photograph: The Guardian<\/p>\n \u201cMostly when I explain to people what I\u2019m doing on the weekend, I say, \u2018I\u2019m going to a library to just sit in silence for an hour with a group of other nerds\u2019,\u201d says Sally Gridley, another of Australia\u2019s enthusiastic quizzers. \u201cWe do an exam for fun. They\u2019re like, are there prizes? I say, no, it\u2019s just about the glory, and you pay to do it.\u201d<\/p>\n Gridley has been quizzing seriously for the last 11 years and even once won The Chase, with her team taking home $102,000 in prize money for their efforts. Quiz TV shows like The Chase and Mastermind are popular, both for the thrill and the fact that they\u2019re the only real way to monetise their hobby. Gridley estimates Australia\u2019s quizzing community to be made up of around only 30 to 35 regular quizzers; worldwide, the global leaderboard reveals an unofficial membership of just under 2,000. It is a small but dedicated scene, participants say \u2013 but one that is friendly, supportive and always welcoming to newcomers.<\/p>\n It is, however, dominated by a particular demographic: men. Gridley estimates she\u2019s one of about eight regular female quizzers in Australia, putting the local scene at about 90% male \u2013 something she can best attribute to the social stigma of it being a \u201cnerdy\u201d pursuit that women perhaps don\u2019t see themselves fitting into. And there\u2019s overlap in other communities, too.<\/p>\n \u201cIt takes one to know one, but quizzing is fairly [popular] in neurodivergent demographics as well \u2013 a lot of quizzers have conditions like autism or ADHD,\u201d Gridley says. \u201cAnd there\u2019s lots of introverts. Like, I\u2019m probably the most gregarious person in the room at any quiz function.\u201d<\/p>\n Or as Schultz puts it: \u201cThere\u2019s a lot of eccentrics \u2013 and we love our eccentrics!\u201d<\/p>\n To make it up the leaderboard as a quizzer, one certainly must have the capacity for a certain type of obsession.<\/p>\n <\/span>\u2018It\u2019s just about the glory\u2019: quizzer Sally Gridley with her prize from ABC\u2019s Hard Quiz.<\/span> Photograph: Ellen Smith\/The Guardian<\/p>\n Thirty-five-year-old finance worker Aaran Mohann, ranked third in Australia, considers himself less diligent with study than many others \u2013 devoting only around six hours a week to it. His primary tactic is to do as many online quizzes as possible, in the hope the answers burrow into his brain. Quizzes, he says, tend to tread similar ground \u2013 right now, for instance, many are covering pop culture phenomena like the Coldplay concert affair or Dubai chocolate.<\/p>\n skip past newsletter promotion<\/p>\n Sign up to Saved for Later<\/span><\/p>\n Catch up on the fun stuff with Guardian Australia’s culture and lifestyle rundown of pop culture, trends and tips<\/p>\n Privacy Notice: <\/strong>Newsletters may contain information about charities, online ads, and content funded by outside parties. If you do not have an account, we will create a guest account for you on theguardian.com to send you this newsletter. You can complete full registration at any time. For more information about how we use your data see our Privacy Policy. We use Google reCaptcha to protect our website and the Google Privacy Policy and Terms of Service apply.<\/span><\/p>\n after newsletter promotion<\/p>\n Flashcarding as a memorisation technique is the new big thing in the quizzing community, Mohann says. \u201cAnd a lot of quizzers will tell you they do Wikipedia trawls \u2013 you start with one article, click on another, and you\u2019re still there a couple of hours later.\u201d<\/p>\n Schultz watches a lot of movies in the hope a plot point might come up in a quiz, and he also buys Dorling Kindersley reference books on everything from medicine to fishing, then copies out facts he finds interesting into his own notebooks by hand. It\u2019s a system that \u201cmakes no sense to anyone but myself\u201d.<\/p>\n He does draw a line, though: \u201cPat Gibson is one of the greatest British quizzers of all time and he reads something like five newspapers a day. I just can\u2019t bring myself to do that \u2013 there\u2019s too much bad news.\u201d<\/p>\n <\/span>Australia’s representatives at the 2024 Quizzing Olympiad in Spain (Aaran Mohann <\/strong>is far right), with Jane Allen of the International Quizzing Association.<\/span> Photograph: Supplied<\/p>\n Even outside the thrill of competition and TV turns, there\u2019s a lot to love about being a dedicated quizzer. Gridley enjoys the sense of accomplishment that comes with getting an answer right, and the facts she\u2019s gained along the way have proven beneficial in her job as a teacher. Mohann says the hobby rewards his natural curiosity about the world. Quizzing, which demands a close reading of the questions lest you disastrously name a city when the test paper actually asked for a country, has also sharpened his attention to detail.<\/p>\n And for Schultz, there\u2019s a calming consistency to the pursuit.<\/p>\n \u201cI love that it\u2019s all about facts and truths, especially in this day and age when there\u2019s AI and [fake news],\u201d he says. \u201cWe can ignore all that and come back to, which King of England was beheaded in 1649? It was Charles I then, it will be Charles I tomorrow, it will still be Charles I in 100 years\u2019 time.\u201d<\/p>\n Schultz loves the life he\u2019s built around quizzing \u2013 for better or worse.<\/p>\n \u201cI\u2019ve never driven a car. I can\u2019t cook. I\u2019m the sort of person who will lose his house keys \u2026 I think I\u2019m a lost cause outside of quizzing. I\u2019m doomed beyond compare.\u201d<\/p>\n Schultz\u2019s focus now is retaining his #1 ranking in Australia \u2013 something he\u2019s held every year since 2011 \u2013 and eventually climbing from a #15 world ranking to claim the #1 spot.<\/p>\n \u201cUsain Bolt, who\u2019s the world\u2019s fastest man, he\u2019s devoted his entire life to running. So I\u2019m willing to devote my entire life to quizzing,\u201d he says. \u201cI mean, why not?\u201d<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":" Issa Schultz has a daily schedule that not many could compete with. \u201cI get up, I make a coffee, I go on the computer and I do quizzes. I take a break for lunch and then get back on the computer for more quizzes,\u201d he says. \u201cIt sounds like an illness, and others may diagnose<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":1,"featured_media":24005,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"open","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[52],"tags":[2029,1495,7442,4238,378,859,96,529,4274,14615,1168,14616],"class_list":{"0":"post-24004","1":"post","2":"type-post","3":"status-publish","4":"format-standard","5":"has-post-thumbnail","7":"category-technology","8":"tag-australias","9":"tag-car","10":"tag-cook","11":"tag-driven","12":"tag-games","13":"tag-ive","14":"tag-lost","15":"tag-meet","16":"tag-quiz","17":"tag-quizzers","18":"tag-top","19":"tag-trivia"},"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/naijaglobalnews.org\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts\/24004","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/naijaglobalnews.org\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/naijaglobalnews.org\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/naijaglobalnews.org\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/users\/1"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/naijaglobalnews.org\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fcomments&post=24004"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/naijaglobalnews.org\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts\/24004\/revisions"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/naijaglobalnews.org\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/media\/24005"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/naijaglobalnews.org\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fmedia&parent=24004"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/naijaglobalnews.org\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fcategories&post=24004"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/naijaglobalnews.org\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Ftags&post=24004"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}