What the Zillow Celebrity Neighbor Poll Tells Us

This post first appeared from Associated Content. The poll cited was taken a few years ago, but no change has been reported, so the post is reappearing here.

According to a real-estate-oriented web site called Zillow, Americans who took the online time to answer questions about which celebrities they'd like to have as neighbors are seriously split.

 

On the list of celebrities the respondents most wanted to have as neighbors, Sarah Palin (apparently considered without her husband and children) rated #2 and the Obama family rated #4.

On the list of celebrities they least wanted to have as neighbors, Mrs. Palin rated #3 and the Obamas rated #2.

What do results like this tell us?

1. The research subjects don't actually know either the former First Family or the former vice-presidential candidate.

2. People may feel some ambivalence about having any celebrity as a neighbor. (Personally, I wouldn't want to live next door to anybody on the list.)

3. Despite the efforts of TV producers, more Americans still recognize the names of people active in real-world politics than recognize the names of the actors (Sandra Bullock, Ellen DeGeneres, Conan O'Brien, Kanye West, Mel Gibson, and "the cast of [a show called] 'Jersey Shore'") proposed as alternatives.

4. The list of celebrities proposed as neighbors was obviously short, forcing a misleading result.

5. People who watch television either (a) believe the images created for actors on television are what the actors are really like, or (b) understand that the only way to respond to fantasy-based questions like this is to pretend to believe the images created for actors on television are what the actors are really like. (We cannot be positive which.)

 

Would you really want to live next door to a TV character? Any TV character? I think I know why Ellen and Conan, an odd couple if ever one was, were picked as desirable neighbors. Neither has much talent, so there's hope that in a few years they'll get over their periods of notoriety and become ordinary people with connections in the TV industry.

Conspicuously absent from the Zillow poll was, of course, any consideration of the kind of people I'd want to have as neighbors if I ever had to live in an urban or suburban environment again. I want unpretentious neighbors...the kind who are more concerned with living in their house than with maximizing its resale value. Plus points would include teenaged sons who tinker with used cars in the driveway, a big chain-link fence around the yard, and a few sheep and goats to help keep the neighborhood free from the noise of power mowers. Almost any other yuppie-repellent lifestyle choice would also be good. Chickens aren't very safe in a suburban environment, but I like chickens.

What I don't want as neighbors are yuppies. Yuppies are yucky. Yuppies don't want to be neighbors; they think their house is an investment they want to resell for the most inflated possible price after they've found a more expensive house somewhere else. Yuppies pay more attention to the way things look than to the actual usefulness of things. Yuppies' houses look as if nobody is really living in them, which may be true, in a way, because what yuppies do in their houses is not "really living." Yuppies want your house to look like theirs because that will help them sell their houses at more inflated prices. Bankers, real estate agents, and credit card companies are the only life forms in the universe that like yuppies. I don't want any bankers, real estate agents, or credit card company employees as neighbors either.

Yuppies like celebrities because celebrities attract money...but I'd rather live next door to people who, although quiet, have a lifestyle that repels yuppies. Needless to say, no consideration of this possibility is built into polls like Zillow's.

Let's just say that the folks at Zillow.com wouldn't have passed "Introduction to Research Methods" at Berea College with a survey as flawed as this one.