How Big is Your Bubble?

[catherine]

I got a 68. I gotta concur with ApatheticNoMore; downward mobility is an interesting vector in all this. Most of my "non-Bubble" points come from how I have lived after a horrible divorce, which was a rapid elevator ride down in social mobility.

Like with ANM, tests like this leave a bitter taste. . . (from the test, not ANM, lol.)

While I certainly take this quiz and all quizzes with a grain of salt, I think maybe what they're getting at, at least the way I see it, is the more our life experiences have enabled us to traverse socio-economic boundaries, the more likely we are to be aware of them (duh). In other words, you may know all about Paris--you may have studied it in books and seen all the photos and the art and architecture, but you really don't KNOW Paris until you actually set foot in it. Similarly, you may know there are people who live differently from you, but limited experience in actually iving as others do will keep you from really knowing their reality.

Why does it even matter if you live in a bubble? Not sure, other than it makes it harder to understand and appreciate all sides of the prism of human experience, or to even realize there are other sides out there. I'll admit that living in the Northeast my whole life put me in a bubble, which is probably why I got a relatively low score.

Another reason for the low score is I could not say I've seen one TV or movie on the lists they gave.

[Alan]

Scoring

You got 74 points.

The higher your score, the thinner your bubble. The lower, the more insulated you might be from mainstream American culture.
See below for scores Charles Murray would expect you to get based on the following descriptions.
48–99: A lifelong resident of a working-class neighborhood with average television and movie going habits. Typical: 77.
42–100: A first-generation middle-class person with working-class parents and average television and movie going habits. Typical: 66.
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.
0–20: A second-generation (or more) upper-middle-class person with the television and movie going habits of the upper middle class. Typical: 2.

[Tybee]

While I certainly take this quiz and all quizzes with a grain of salt, I think maybe what they're getting at, at least the way I see it, is the more our life experiences have enabled us to traverse socio-economic boundaries, the more likely we are to be aware of them (duh). In other words, you may know all about Paris--you may have studied it in books and seen all the photos and the art and architecture, but you really don't KNOW Paris until you actually set foot in it. Similarly, you may know there are people who live differently from you, but limited experience in actually iving as others do will keep you from really knowing their reality.

Why does it even matter if you live in a bubble? Not sure, other than it makes it harder to understand and appreciate all sides of the prism of human experience, or to even realize there are other sides out there. I'll admit that living in the Northeast my whole life put me in a bubble, which is probably why I got a relatively low score.

Another reason for the low score is I could not say I've seen one TV or movie on the lists they gave.

I guess what I was trying to say is that the underlying methodology of the quiz seems very flawed to me. The assumption that living in a rural environment makes you a rube, for example, or service in the Armed Forces is inconsistent with higher education. Things like that. They are defining the bubble from a very narrow viewpoint, with questions like, "did you have any friends in high school who got C's, even though they tried hard." It seemed so narrow and snobbish.

I don't know, from a market research demographic point of view, what did you make of the test?

[Yppej]

I got a 40 but I am definitely not upper middle class.

[catherine]

I guess what I was trying to say is that the underlying methodology of the quiz seems very flawed to me. The assumption that living in a rural environment makes you a rube, for example, or service in the Armed Forces is inconsistent with higher education. Things like that. They are defining the bubble from a very narrow viewpoint, with questions like, "did you have any friends in high school who got C's, even though they tried hard." It seemed so narrow and snobbish.

I don't know, from a market research demographic point of view, what did you make of the test?

I'm not a social scientist so I can't speak to the assumptions behind those questions. I'd love to speak to the people who put the quiz together to find out. From a market research/demographic point of view, I simply find it interesting. When we do segmentation studies, we ask those types of questions, but since I'm in pharmaceuticals and not consumer packaged goods, I can't really say that those questions are typical of the ones we ask in order to "bucket" people for the purpose of marketing to them.

[herbgeek]

36 but I'm not upper middle class in terms of my spending. I do have some of the snobbery though (don't care for much of what is on TV, don't care for chain restaurants).

[LDAHL]

This test has no scientific validity. It doesn't even ask your zip code.

[razz]

Scored 50. Not being from the US created some challenges in accuracy. I had to choose between Richard Branson and the entertainment complex - they were equal to my knowledge of them as an example. I am a rural resident continuously by choice of my family and my decision.

I have been really poor but was fortunate enough to overcome the deficit due to a combination of reasons. Maybe my lack of understanding of value of the test indicates something.

[Alan]

This is the test that bae amd Alan go,head to head on about who is a bigger hillbilly at origin.

I don't know about bae but in my case, hillbilly isn't the right word, growing up I heard multiple references to 'poor white trash' directed towards my extended family, and that is probably more accurate as a label. I grew up in the kind of poor, stunted environment that made it necessary for me to leave home at 17 because I knew it was the only way to find and perhaps have the ability to grasp the slightest opportunity.

The military was my salvation, on the one hand it required me to subvert myself to higher authority and go into harm's way upon someone else's whim, but it also encouraged me to be all I could be and provided training and educational opportunities I would have missed otherwise.

I get a kick now out of the occasional inference that those of us who finally enjoy a solid middle class or higher background are only able to do so because of our "privilege". I think the tight little enclosed bubble they enjoyed throughout life didn't prepare them to see what it takes from others not hindered by early comforts to get to that point. I've never heard that term used by anyone who doesn't use it in regards to race or gender or as a means to separate themselves from their perceived enemy. I often chuckle to myself because I know something they don't and probably never will, that the privilege they disdain is not always genetic but since they didn't earn their own, the concept is unfathomable.

Sorry for the rant.

[Williamsmith]

I would have scored higher than 73 if I was a chain smoker and gulped Iron city Beer. Apparently bourbon is a sign of affluence and insular status. My exposure to NASCAR definitely elevated my game. And working in a steel mill gave me street cred.