So who are the people in your neighborhood?

by Henry Farrell on September 12, 2003

Via “Laura”:http://apartment11d.blogspot.com/2003_09_01_apartment11d_archive.html#106333241625339719 at _Apartment 11D_ comes this fascinating “website”:http://cluster1.claritas.com/MyBestSegments/Default.jsp?ID=20. Enter your zipcode, and you can find out which cheesy and facile marketing categories inhabit your neighborhood. Are you going through difficult times along with other Hard Years Sustaining Families, or hanging out with hip and happening Successful Singles? Details also provided on the likely purchasing habits of your neighbours (‘Struggling Metro Mixes’ are likely to buy jewelry, and own more than four televisions). You could waste hours if you’re not careful.

Neal Stephenson and his uncle had a lot of fun with these kinds of marketing labels in their pseudonymously written _Interface_ (purportedly written by ‘Stephen Bury’). Among the subcategories that Interface‘s crazed political-demographic operatives identify in their efforts to manipulate the American voting public are:

* Mid-American Knick-Knack Queens
* Post-Confederate Gravy Eaters
* Frosty-Haired Coupon Snippers
* Mall-Hopping Corporate Concubines
* Debt-Hounded Wage Slaves
* Trade School Metal Heads
* Depression-Haunted Can Stackers

By their labels shall ye know them.

{ 5 comments }

1

eric 09.12.03 at 8:37 pm

Hah. That thing is scary.

2

dq 09.12.03 at 10:41 pm

That was bizarre – I don’t appear to live in my own neighborhood . . .

3

jam 09.13.03 at 12:40 am

I have it worse. I don’t appear to exist.

4

Patrick (G) 09.14.03 at 8:20 pm

The categories don’t seem to be entirely consistent…

The Home Sweet Home category supposedly has a median household income of $63,983, which is described as “Upper Middle”.

But the ‘Traditional Times’ category has a median Household income of $41,189, which is described as “Affluent”…huh?

oh, and african-americans don’t seem to be part of “Mainstream Families”, but Pacific Islanders are…

5

Nabakov 09.15.03 at 3:56 pm

whereas online, it does tend to be:
Activist Tube Feeder;
Cynical Media Manipulator;
High-Fibre Duck Squeezer; and
Burger Flipping History Major

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