JCC Do You Live in a bubble?

How the actual **** does anyone answer the first question without systematically interrogating 50+ neighbors over the age of 25? If I was richer would I have awesome Terminator vision telling me whether or not someone went to college? Is that how it works?

 

You go through their mail looking for clues, or you guess.

 

Live in my zip code? (fun fact: I think the most bubbliest zip code in the "are you living in a bubble by zip code" test!)

http://www.pbs.org/newshour/making-...-in-a-bubble-these-zip-codes-suggest-you-did/

 

Close, but no cigar. This time, I answered no on anything that had "American" or "United States" in it, to make it as truthful as possible. I landed on 25.

 

If there's one thing better-protected than living in a bubble, it's living in an island fortress for the super-rich.

 

I guess I'll just never know whether a straight white male libertarian Harvard educated political scientist who thinks IQ trumps socioeconomic status thinks I live in a bubble.

 

We're totally f'ed in the zombie invasion though...

Or if you're stupid enough to try and escape via tunnel post-global pandemic (a la The Stand)...

 

So I tried this just for fun (I'm non-American) and I scored a 17.

 

Oh my god the guy who cooked up this quiz has been classified as a white supremacist eugenicist by the SPLC. This is everything I dreamed it would be.

 

Aside from the Americanocentrificationism it's definitely classifying people on a continuum with "rural white" on one end and "urban white" on the other. It's the "which bubble do you live in" quiz.

 

Non-yank here, I answered no to any question that asked if I've lived in America, I didn't recognise many of the shops and restaurants and have never been to any of them, and I scored 32.

Apparently I'm a first generation upper middle class with middle class parents, which is a big pile of arse biscuits. In my country the upper middle class would be the type to have affairs with au-pairs, and send their kids (named Tilly and Marmaduke) to private schools. That's not my scene. I guess being upper middle class in America means that you don't eat at fast food restaurants..?

I am definitely isolated from mainstream American culture though, thank ****.

 

This.

 

I got 68 points.

 

For science I did the test again ignoring the word American and trying to imagine what lettering in high school actually means - I said yes this time because I reckoned being in the school choir might be the same as being in the school marching band, which was not a thing.

That raises my score from 32 to 53. Now I'm a middle class person (true) with working class parents (false), and I'm an upper middle class person (false) with middle class parents (true) and I've lived in working class/rural areas all my life (partially true-ish).

 

Yeah, living abroad made some of the questions difficult. I grew up in the US but haven't lived there since the late 1980s. I see a few pickup trucks here but most people hauling cargo around (as in construction workers, for example) have vans, not pickups.

 

I was basically going to make a "so Bernie except IQ instead of race," but the white supremacist part turned me off...

 

22.

 

22. I can't tell if that means that the white supremacist eugenicist approves of me or not.

Edit: Ah, I see that the quiz writer is one of the dudes who wrote "The Bell Curve." I hope he disapproves of me. I disapprove of him.

 

42–100: A first-generation middle-class person with working-class parents and average television and movie going habits. Typical: 66

49 for me

 

23: 11–80: A first-generation upper-middle-class person with middle-class parents.

I don't think I'm upper-middle class.

 

39

But some of these questions make no sense

1. I *think* 40-50% of my neighbors might have at least someone in their house who has a college degree, but I don't really know, and if I was right it's not much more than 50%, going to go with No.
2. The chief breadwinner was my mom, a teacher... does that count as prestigious position or blue collar or neither? Going with neither. And my dad was a factory worker, then in logistics, then a custodian, but not breadwinner.
3. No... but in 4 out of the 5 different places I lived in over 11 months for a job were under 50,000 in population
4. Yes... but it was part of the same job, which paid less than minimum wage but gave you free housing and a food budget and team van and gas money so not sure if that counts...
5. I worked on a factory floor... in tours of places in my hometown
6. This one is actually a straight Yes, the 11-month job had a lot of physical labor
7. I know Evangelical Christians... not as a best friend, but close acquaintances
8. Yes, finally another straight yes, I'm friends with multiple people I disagree with politically
9. Um, yes, I think?
10. I didn't like the cigarette smoke, but yes?
11. I think I know one. I had cousins, uncles, and grandfathers in the military... but they're either dead or live too far away.
12. Don't know either Jimmy Johnson or Avon?
13. I never bought a vehicle ever and I don't have a spouse... but my dad has had trucks? So I think I'll answer yes in the spirit of the question.
14. I hardly drink period, and when I do I buy cheap vodka, though I have bought Budweiser before it hasn't been for a few years... so no?
15. No fishing in the last year, that's an easy straight answer. I've done it before and wouldn't mind doing it if others were, but it's eh.
16. Not this year, but in past years, I don't like going to restaurants in general.

17. What does it mean to "letter" in something? I ran Varsity Cross Country? I really don't get this question. Going to go with No. This is the one that puzzled me the most, it assumes everyone even knows what "lettering" is?

18. No, I don't have the right job experience yet for any of those things.
19. When I was a kid I was in a few parades as part of my little league team? Does that count? But I've never paraded for a cause.
20. Had to wear uniforms for 2 different jobs in AmeriCorps.
21. Ridden on a long-distance bus... are there really people who have never done this by the time they're in their mid-20's in the US? This doesn't seem like a privilege thing to me.
22. Half of the movies I saw
23. Only 1 of these TV shows: Once Upon A Time
24. None of those shows, despite my mom trying to get me to watch Ellen with her
25. No idea about Branson

It says for me:
11–80: A first-generation upper-middle-class person with middle-class parents. Typical: 33.
0–43: A second-generation (or more) upper-middle-class person who has made a point of getting out a lot. Typical: 9.

But I really don't think the son of a teacher and laid-off blue collar worker, themselves the children of WWII-vets-turned-factory-works and stay-at-home mothers, could as "upper middle class" at all. And while I did a year of travelling, out of RI to all over the West Coast (for a job) and to India (month of volunteering), I'm back home in RI and I don't really like to get out either.

 

some people really overthinking this buzzfeed quiz

 

49

A lifelong resident of a working-class neighborhood with average television and movie going habits. Typical: 77