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Finding your identity is tough for any teen. It’s harder in a sprawling reality TV family.
Together on her Call Your Sister podcast with sister Joy-Anna, Jinger explains how she alternated between extremes as she tried to find herself.
At times, that meant being extremely outgoing.
Other times, Jinger felt a desire to be very serious and prioritize performative godliness.
‘I was an over-the-top extrovert’ until …
A clip circulating on TikTok shows a clip from Jinger and Joy’s Call Your Sister podcast.
In the video, Jinger discusses that she — like so many teens — was still finding herself during adolescence.
This is why she oscillated between different gimmicks and traits, including her once-infamous thumbs up.
(She unfortunately phrased this as having “multiple personality disorder,” which is a joke in poor taste; she does not have Dissociative Identity Disorder.)
In reality, she knew that she was one of many, many Duggar daughters. Beyond that, figuring out who she was turned out to be a struggle.
“I remember there was a season where I was really, really funny and I was, like, joking, extremely outgoing,” Jinger recalled during the clip.
As we have previously explained, evangelical circles use “season” as in-group vocabulary to refer to specific times in their lives.
“Everybody who stepped foot into our house, I was like the first one to welcome them,” Jinger described.
“And I was an over-the-top extrovert,” she continued.
Jinger noted: “That was a side of me and I was really goofy and silly.”
‘I had my thumbs up thing that I would do’
“Prior to my teenage years, I remember even looking back at some of those old shows,” Jinger shared with Joy on the podcast episode.
“That’s how I remember because I’ve seen a few where I’m like, wow, me, like in those stages, I had my thumbs up thing that I would do,” she acknowledged.
Many fans remember her goofy antics fondly. Others saw them as a cry for help, or an acknowledgment of how phony the Duggar brand was.
In the same episode, Jinger admitted that she reached a point where she felt that she had to be ultra-mature in order to be a truly devout christian.
That meant forcing herself to not laugh at jokes. Jinger admitted that some of her bible studying and godliness became performative.
This clip, which has been making the rounds on TikTok, happens to be from the second official Call Your Sister episode.
Jinger and Joy touch upon a series of topics each episode, as any podcast of substantial length might.
Some fans and viewers suggest that the sisters are more entertaining as a series of curated clips than as full episodes. Others disagree.
There are plenty of people who don’t mind keeping up with Duggar sisters provided that they aren’t supporting Jim Bob (or Josh or Joseph) in the process.
Even in the confines of an extreme cult environment, Jinger was a teenager trying to figure herself out. She managed it with fewer options or resources than most adolescents have. Good for her.
