1

My wife drives a used, paid-for Volvo - where does that put us?

I'm tied for Bobo and Boorbo right now

2

In Japan, "boorbo" and "volvo" would sound the same.

Of course, if your Volvo is a peculiar greenish blue, then . . .

There's just something about an Aqua Volvo, man.

Duck and cover,
PGE

3

I am the cook for my family, and I often buy food labeled "organic" because most often it just tastes better. Where does this put me on your scale?

4

How about eating grow-your-own organic? Not quite as trendy, ay? If one must grow it themselves, I suppose that's an automatic "boorbo".

5

Did anyone else catch the 60 Minutes piece on Whole Foods last night? It would be nice if Wal Mart could emulate their practice of purchasing organic food from both small local farmers and large organic conglomorates.

At the risk of treating a light hearted post too seriously: I suspect that Walmart will find a growing market for organic foods among people who are in no way "bohemian." Christians and conservatives in the Wendell Berry (rather than corporate shark) mold might favor organic food and heirloom varieties for reasons of tradition and environmental stewardship. In light of studies that show the vast majority of pesticide residues in the bloodstream of infants comes from their food, it's nice to see that in most standard supermarkets, organic baby food is rapidly replacing the standard fare. We make our own baby food from farmer's market fare, which probably verges on "crunchy" rather than "bobo."

I guess I'm neither boorbo nor bobo, even though I consume organic food:
Coffee: yuck
Organic food: local farmer's market
Home Accessories: purchased while traveling
Wine: beer
Water: our own well
beer: Yuengling porter
Home Furnishings: Stain-it-yourself wood furniture and/or Ecko
Late night talk show host: too tired
Shopping: internet
Latest foreign film: on DVD
City: no way in hell
reading material: science fiction

6

Jeff Blogworthy:

If you grow it your self, I think that makes you "crunchy." Better break out the birkenstocks and perhaps a peasant dress for your wife.

7

For BoBos - it's more of an image thing. For BoorBos, I would think, it's a gravitation to the latter Bo (i.e., bohemian), but not for the image reasons and without the upper middle class first Bo.

But, where does that leave someone like me, an organic theocon who values community but is not a big fan of bigbox and a lot of the boor things. That makes me a Crunchy Con, as described by Rod Dreher.(http://www.amazon.com/gp/product/1400050642/sr=8-1/qid=1149525876/ref=pd_bbs_1/002-3993913-9405639?%5Fencoding=UTF8)

Crunchy Cons, however, wouldn't be shopping on a regular basis at the WalMart supercenter for their organics.

8

Jeff:
I can't help but wonder if the classification for those who grow their own doesn't vary with how much money has been spent on toys with which to do their gardening.
Still, I feel sorry for those who have never had a tomato out of the garden or gone out to pick sweetcorn for dinner with the water already boiling on the stove.

9

Clever post. I think there's a good bit of overlap in some of your categories, though. A lot of middle-class people like "Deadwood" and the Discovery Channel, and shop at Target and Trader Joe's (including the wine section).

10

John Kerry doesn't come from old money, you moron. why do you people always have to lie to make your points?

11

JRI John Kerry doesn't come from old money, you moron. why do you people always have to lie to make your points?

***sigh***

From Wikipedia:

Kerry is the second child of Richard John Kerry and Rosemary Forbes Kerry….Although the extended family enjoyed a great fortune, Kerry's parents themselves were upper-middle class; a wealthy great aunt paid for Kerry to attend elite schools in Europe and New England.

Kerry spent his summers at the Forbes family estate in France, and there, he enjoyed a more opulent lifestyle than he had previously known in Massachusetts. While living in the U.S., Kerry spent several summers at the Forbes family's estates on Naushon Island off Cape Cod.

Kerry's maternal grandfather, James Grant Forbes, was born in Shanghai, China, where the family accumulated a fortune in opium and China trade. Forbes married Margaret Tyndal Winthrop, who came from the Dudley-Winthrop political family. Through her, John Kerry is distantly related to four US Presidents [1] and to various royals in Europe.

12

Bobo v. Boorbo. Impressive, it looks like some observer has come up with a term to pigeonhole people that is even more analytically useless than Dinc, yuppie, gen-x, boomer, and red/blue stater.

13

Interesting post. Okay, I'll play:

Coffee: small roaster at local coffee house
Organic food: Community Supported Agriculture (i.e., prepaid share of a local farm's production)
Home Accessories: flea markets, original art, clearance table at Pier 1, plants
Non-entertainment tv: PBS
Political affiliation (left): Democrat like my daddy and his daddy before him
Wine: what's on special at the supermarket
Water: tap, with filter
Gaming system: None
beer: regional microbrew
HBO series: Don't have cable.
Men's shirts: Third generation Main St. men's store
Home Furnishings: garage sales, heirlooms, local estate auctions
Late night talk show host: I get up early.
Shopping: internet, Main St. shops, KMart, Target
Latest foreign film: public library DVD
City: 4 hours away in light traffic
Business guru: Lord Browne
reading material: everything that passes through the public library

14

That was excellent and spot on. I am such a craven boorbo. I seal the deal by making the very lowest contribution to NPR that will get me some free gear - preferably a book-bag in which I can tote my incredibly boring book by whoever was on Terri Gross' Fresh Air last month; then pretentiously act like I am reading it on the DC Metro train while I am actually listening to a downloaded book-on-tape of Tom Clancy's Rainbow Six on my IPOD.

I say this without a hint of irony. I really do this. I am pathetic. Oh, the humanity.

15

Hey, JRI, where's your moron now? Which "you people" would that be, the informed or the cravenly dim-witted?

Cigars - BoBos: Arteuro Fuentes - BoorBos: Swisher Sweets

Dogs - BoBos: Labradoodle - Boorbos - Lab - yellow, chocolate or black.

16

My wife drives a used, paid-for Volvo - where does that put us?

**Depends on where you're driving... hey, put those tomatoes down!

Baseball Game Seating-

BoBos: Private climate controlled box.

Boorbos: Box seat next to 400-pound sweaty guy..

17

This is interesting but it is spun in a deceiving way. While it’s true that “Social mobility … still favors those who are already privileged in some way”, it is also very common for families to move DOWN the social scale from higher levels. In fact, from 1988 to 1998, about the same number of upper-class families moved DOWN the scale as there were LOWER class families that moved UP. Middle-class families had about a 25% chance of staying put, and about a 38% chance of moving UP and a 35% chance of moving down. So we do generally start out similar to our parents, but whether we move up or down is pretty much up to us. See the linked graphic from the NYT (click the “income mobility” tab):

http://www.nytimes.com/packages/html/national/20050515_CLASS_GRAPHIC/index_01.html

You might find it fun to click on “Components of Class” and rate yourself based on occupation, education, net worth, and income.

18

social mobility,

i agree that social mobility exists here--and alot of it. i come from a super working class family. but i'm pretty drenched in prada these days, and have a kind of pretty resume you'd swear was made for the child of the elite.

thank god for student loans--lots of them, over 200k.

but i'm not sure i buy into meritocracy. i can't really believe i was elected to better social standing than the rest of my family by being much better than them in any way. we're all pretty similar in easily quantifiable ways: sorta smart, sorta clever/wity, fairly pretty people.

so then what gives, eh? i'm banking on dumb luck. some of us get lucky. so mobility?? yes. but meritocratic mobility, i don't buy it. seems more like lottery to me.

glad to have won it though,

c

19

Of course those who can afford it prefer organic foods, especially those with kids. I doubt that many organic food consumers shop at Walmart though. I've certainly never set foot in one.

20

How is it that the Bush family is old money? I won't call you names, but I'm not sure that W qualifies the same way that Kerry does.

21

JD How is it that the Bush family is old money?

Dubya's grandfather was a Senator and his great-grandfather was George Herbert "Bert" Walker, a wealthy banker and businessman. (And Bert Dad was a businessman who owned Ely, Walker & Company).

I'm not sure how the rest of the country measures "old money" but in Texas if you dad's dad had money then that is pretty "old."

22

As an aside, I think the U.S. is much less of a meritocracy than we would like to think. I recall seeing a recent study (which I'm too lazy to look up) showing that social mobility is greater in several European countries than in the US. They found that the odds of someone born in the bottom quartile of income ever reaching the top quartile are depressingly remote.

23

Well, here's an article from The Economist arguing that social mobility in the U.S. is declining. Unfortunately, it doesn't compare the U.S. to other countries.

http://www.economist.com/world/na/displayStory.cfm?story_id=3518560

24

Joe,

I am sure someone has already made this comment, but at risk of repeating someone else, your demographic profiling is not entirely correct.

While it is true that Wal-Mart's core customer profile is still what many define broadly as the "value shopper", that tag can refer to any number of consumers -- including rather wealthy middle class women (those prone to switch to organic health food in an effort to improve the quality of food for children). It is also true that, at the margin, Wal-Mart now has consumers in almost every demo and psychographic segment.

When you are the largest business in the world, you have to find ways to expand. It may be scope creep, but there is nowhere for Wal-Mart to go except up the income ladder; and they are winning a decent share of business there.

25

Wow, interesting. When I was growing up, "bobos" were cheap "knock-offs" of the high priced sneakers all the cool kids wore! LOL!

26

I totally get this article. My own upbringing was rural and economically challenged, and from college on, I've always been kind of a fish out of water. I've got the education and career credentials of an upper middle-class twit, but my roots are rural and poor, and I've never fit in well anywhere. That's also probably a big part of the reason personal relationships have always been problematic for me.

27

Nick, or anyone, this question came up at a party. Can you get Yuengling outside of Pennsylvania, or is that where you're at? Great beer. Haven't seen it in Cleveland, OH-area.