British Breakdown
November 17, 2014 9:38 PM   Subscribe

People that like Slugs are mostly males, aged 25-39, live in Northern Scotland, are far right politically and work in mining and quarrying. Favourite dishes are Spinach Risotto followed by Fidget Pie. They like bird watching and cycling. They describe themselves as alternative but on occasion silly. They are online for 36-40 hours per week and read the Guardian and New Scientist.
Whereas people that like Jellyfish are likely to be female, aged 25-39, live in the north east, are far left politically and work in research and development. Their favourite dish is Vegetarian Sausage Roll followed by Hunter's Stew. They like looking after their pets and archery. They describe themselves as idiosyncratic and on occasion withdrawn. They are online for 50+ hours per week and read the Guardian and New Scientist.

There are a variety of animals and insects that UK people like:
Voles
Axolotls
Okapis
Proboscis Monkeys
Xoloitzcuintlis
Narwhals
Sea-Monkeys
Galagos
Jerboas
Stick Insects
Crane Flies
Earwigs
Chinese Bird Spiders
Komondors
Tapirs
African Pygmy Hedgehogs
Capybaras
Komodo Dragons
Giant African Land Snails

You can do countries too.
British people who have a special interest in America are male 25-39, live in London. They are slightly right politically and work in the government and civil service. Their favourite dish is Red Velvet Cake and Hamburgers. They play video games and watch American football. They probably own a dog. When they drink, they drink to get drunk. They wear Nikes and their favourite artist is Michael Jackson. They frequent tmz.com and follow @cnnbrk. They recently watched The Big Bang Theory.
Whereas people who have a special interest in Australia are female 25-39 and live in East Anglia. They work in Advertising/Marketing/Public Relations. Their favourite dish is Sesame Prawn Toast and Thai Vegetable Stir-Fry (Kangaroo Burger, 3rd). They play board games and go swimming. They have a bird as a pet. They are open minded about homeopathy and are on occasion dizzy. They fly QANTAS, bank at HSBC and drive a BMW. They watch TV for 41-45 hours a week and recently watched Neighbours.
posted by unliteral (56 comments total) 20 users marked this as a favorite
 
Spending some time on the YouGov site is pretty hilarious. A cursory look at my interests shows that it gets more right than I really feel comfortable with, though it seems fairly insistent that I'm male. I didn't think my tastes were that butch.
posted by Trifling at 9:57 PM on November 17, 2014


Would Hedgehog fit for the 45-70 American male demographic?
posted by clavdivs at 9:59 PM on November 17, 2014


Err, is this to help with Secret Quonsor? If so, great! All I know, as detail, is that she is an Arsenal fan and I am a sucky stalker.
posted by jadepearl at 9:59 PM on November 17, 2014 [1 favorite]


live in Northern Scotland, are far right politically and work in mining and quarrying [...] read the Guardian and New Scientist

This certainly contradicts some stereotypes.
posted by Joakim Ziegler at 10:04 PM on November 17, 2014 [6 favorites]


I have a lot more in common with old men in Wales than I would have thought.
posted by thivaia at 10:07 PM on November 17, 2014 [2 favorites]


the first person to mention clarified butter is getting a shell jab to the face.
posted by The Whelk at 10:11 PM on November 17, 2014


the first person to mention clarified butter is getting a shell jab to the face.

But... wasn't that you?
posted by ROU_Xenophobe at 10:15 PM on November 17, 2014 [3 favorites]


my face my valuable face!
posted by The Whelk at 10:16 PM on November 17, 2014 [1 favorite]


the first person to mention clarified butter is getting a shell jab to the face.
oh, ghee whizz!
posted by elephantday at 10:17 PM on November 17, 2014 [8 favorites]


People who like Jellied Eels are 60+, in R&D, Military/Defense or Entertainment, live in East Anglia and swing well to the left. I guess I would have predicted most of that except for the professions.
posted by George_Spiggott at 10:23 PM on November 17, 2014


This feels to me very british - in that it views it as being interesting and appropriate to rank people by their social class, spare spending money, and miscellaneous superficial details. I do not like - it just seems so reductionistic and demeaning.
posted by ianhattwick at 10:31 PM on November 17, 2014 [1 favorite]


Apparently I'm a middle-aged married Welsh Tory lady.

I'll take it, but I'm going to secretly vote Labour while claiming to all our friends at dinner parties that I voted Tory.
posted by Eyebrows McGee at 10:34 PM on November 17, 2014 [3 favorites]


Is there an entry for catgirls?
posted by Chocolate Pickle at 10:34 PM on November 17, 2014 [1 favorite]


Interesting that when you type in "Train Spotting" or "Trainspotting" it only offers you the movie or the book, but not the activity for which it's named. Does no one spot trains in Britain anymore? (It does offer you Aircraft Spotting, though.)
posted by George_Spiggott at 10:34 PM on November 17, 2014


Could also be used as a dating site
posted by idiopath at 10:40 PM on November 17, 2014


Okay, was seriously not expecting this.
posted by George_Spiggott at 10:41 PM on November 17, 2014


That site is hilarious.

Fans of John Lydon are typically men between age 40 and 59, and like Doc Martens.
posted by charlie don't surf at 10:42 PM on November 17, 2014


People who like mice are most likely to have pet cats.
posted by Grangousier at 10:58 PM on November 17, 2014


I like Slugs, but I'm not a Scot nor am I a minor. I have heard of the Quarrymen however.
posted by Zedcaster at 10:59 PM on November 17, 2014


This is meaningless without Badger, badger, badger, badger...
mushroom... (MetaFilter) mushroom...
posted by oneswellfoop at 11:09 PM on November 17, 2014


Needs Meerkats. Fans of whom also admire Fulton Mackay
posted by quarsan at 11:12 PM on November 17, 2014


Interestingly, "geeky" shows up as one of the positive personality characteristics, but "nerdy" is a negative.

Based on a few of the things I like, I am geeky but can sometimes be nerdy. To be honest, it's more the other way around.
posted by daisyk at 12:46 AM on November 18, 2014


Oh dear. Apparently liking goldfish makes you racist.
posted by Katemonkey at 12:54 AM on November 18, 2014


Katemonkey, you just need to hang out with folks who like Koi; their main crime seems to be liking Ryan O'Neal.
posted by taz at 1:24 AM on November 18, 2014


Is there a reverse search anywhere? As in, I enter my location and profession etc, and it tells me what animal I should like? I'd enjoy playing around with that.
posted by Ned G at 2:00 AM on November 18, 2014


So this is a cheap shot, but I find it incredibly amusing that the six favourite dishes of people who like Margaret Thatcher are:
  • Game Pie
  • Wild Boar Stew
  • Spotted Dick
  • Roast Venison
  • Roast Partridge
  • Beef Wellington
Hobbies: constipation?
posted by Zarkonnen at 2:28 AM on November 18, 2014 [3 favorites]


Here's a breakdown of people by newspaper.
posted by Ned G at 3:01 AM on November 18, 2014


It's demography gone mad!
posted by dumdidumdum at 3:24 AM on November 18, 2014 [2 favorites]


Was messing with this yesterday, mainly doing football clubs. I was gratified to find my fellow Leeds fans were a bit to the left of centre, and unsurprised Millwall fans were far right. I was surprised their favourite hobby was dancing though.

It's interesting also, that the top websites weren't filtered, so PornTube came fourth for Spurs fans.

Checking political parties was interesting too... seemingly the only thing Labour and UKIP supporters agree on is that "The world is controlled by a secretive elite".
posted by Auz at 3:30 AM on November 18, 2014


I must have some major blind spot about British politics, because people who like the International Planned Parenthood Federation are ALL the way to the right on politics. I'd love insight into why it would not be all the way to the left (as I would expect from a US point of view), if anyone can fill me in.
posted by Stewriffic at 4:02 AM on November 18, 2014 [1 favorite]


people who like the International Planned Parenthood Federation are ALL the way to the right on politics

People here who put this down as an interest have probably spent a significant amount of time in the US, and this has influenced their politics to the right... bearing in mind that your most left wing politicians there seem to be to the right of Margaret Thatcher. You'd probably all be horrified by what we think of as left wing politicians.

Most Brits aren't particularly aware of Planned Parenthood because we get our reproductive services on the NHS and the availability of such services is taken for granted.
posted by emilyw at 4:16 AM on November 18, 2014 [2 favorites]


Also, that's based on the views of 25 people, so any data for it is essentially meaningless really.
posted by dng at 4:24 AM on November 18, 2014


Ah, sample size. I didn't notice that.
posted by Stewriffic at 4:25 AM on November 18, 2014


People here who put [Planned Parenthood International] down as an interest have probably spent a significant amount of time in the US...

That's my guess too. That group's favourite sport is American Football, and "the sample size is too small" to give any information about web browsing or twitter.

The political spectrum represented by that dial is very narrow, showing Labour and the Conservatives close to the extremes of each end, so it seems plausible that an American moderate would be represented as fairly hard right.

(Judging from the data on hobbies and preferences of mine that I can find a listing for, I'm right wing, sixty-something, and of indeterminate gender. Hmmm.)
posted by metaBugs at 4:30 AM on November 18, 2014


Amongst "Great British Bakeoff" fans, six of the ten top brands are airports. Not airlines or travel agencies, airports.

This is a very weird database.
posted by metaBugs at 4:42 AM on November 18, 2014 [1 favorite]


> "Is it just me or do there seem to be a lot of 'typical Scots' in this database?"

However, it is important to note that there are no TRUE Scotsmen in this database.
posted by kyrademon at 4:48 AM on November 18, 2014 [3 favorites]


So, people who like Finland tend to be 25-39yr old women who are left-leaning, organic/ethical shoppers with £500-£999 spare change in their pocket. The laughing cynic in me attributes the latter to their love of 16-25railcard.co.uk. Cheeky swines!

[correlation is not smorrelation, fiddle-de-ree!]
posted by comealongpole at 5:22 AM on November 18, 2014


Typical Scot? Lets look at some stereotypes. Did a search for Irn Bru and it reckoned the average spare money per month was £500 - £999. Who did they survey, drug dealers?. Greggs and Poundland on the other hand, a bit more likely, still a bit optimistic on spare cash though. Did a search for Buckfast, nothing, perhaps that demographic weren't out of bed yet. And deep fried Mars Bars ... Wales?
posted by epo at 5:34 AM on November 18, 2014


I have no coherent UK identity! I like McVities Hobnobs Dark Chocolate, which makes me a Welsh man, aged 40-59, who works in transport and logistics, enjoys eating something called Lincolnshire plum loaf, and reads Caravan Club magazine. But I also like clothes from Uniqlo, which makes me a 25-39-year-old male Londoner who works in media and publishing, has a shit-ton of disposable income, eats pork gyoza, and reads both the Guardian and the Economist. Both of these parts of my personality lean left politically. But I also enjoy knitting, which makes me a slightly right-leaning elderly lady from the West Country who reads the Daily Mail and Good Housekeeping. Who am I?! What is the meaning of it all?! Does that mean I can never set foot in the UK because I will explode and splinter off into different pieces, at least one of which will read the Daily Mail!?!
posted by ArbitraryAndCapricious at 5:48 AM on November 18, 2014 [3 favorites]


Useful information on the political spectrum dial, from their FAQ blog post:
Simplifying a group of people onto a left-right axis is notoriously hard. PhDs have been written on the subject! Specifically, the left/right dial shows where this group *ranks* among their comparison set in terms of the percentage of Conservative voters among the total. So it's really a measure of Conservatism.
From the comments there, someone else who was confused by this odd measure:
I was very confused when i searched for Liberal Democrat supporters and found them to be VERY left wing on the dial... Now that i've read it is based on the number of Conservate supporters, it is obvious why they were put far-left because they are Lib Dems, not Tories...
They also clarify how they calculate these interests (maybe this explains why so many of these profiles seem to be Scottish?)
It shows what is *particularly true* about a group. We compare the group to their natural 'comparison set' (for example, fans of Downton Abbey compared to anyone who has rated any TV shows) and see which of the thousands of datapoints most overscore in our target group. The Z score is a statistical measure of the strength of that overscoring.

For example, if something is only true of 1% of the overall population, but is true of 6% of our target group, it might score very highly (and shows you something interesting and true about that group). But it doesn't mean that it is true of all of them!
posted by daisyk at 5:57 AM on November 18, 2014 [2 favorites]


And Burger King. Spare cash 500-999? Online 50+ hrs/wk, TV 36-40 hrs/wk? It was drug dealers.

(Yes, I know its likely to be one or the other, but still).
posted by epo at 5:59 AM on November 18, 2014


Hobbies: constipation?

or gout.
posted by poffin boffin at 7:48 AM on November 18, 2014


I was unaware beer went with Reese's Pieces.
posted by Katemonkey at 8:09 AM on November 18, 2014


Reese's Pieces are another thing which you can get over here but it's definitely still "Americana", so I'd guess that the Reese's Pieces fans are also either American or fans of America.

Their affinity with Americana also stretches to basketball, cheeseburgers, and macaroni cheese.

But that's not all there is to it, since they also seem to like some very mainstream British brands of beer; I'd have imagined US expats or Americana fans to be drinking more lager.
posted by emilyw at 8:28 AM on November 18, 2014


I am confused by the demographic favouring WILTY.
posted by poffin boffin at 8:42 AM on November 18, 2014


That demographic is "People who do nothing except get home from work and watch TV". They watch a lot of WILTY because that's what's on the TV when they are watching it.
posted by emilyw at 8:57 AM on November 18, 2014


It's important to note that far-right miners from the north of Scotland can be significantly over-represented in the sample of slug-likers compared to the general population of the UK, while also representing a vanishingly small fraction of both groups.

I'm slightly annoyed that the politics meter can't be clicked on to find more statics, unlike the rest of the indicators, and significantly annoyed that the only data available is a z-score, with no obvious indication of the absolute size of any of the groups. ( I suspect that with a sample of 119 people, a single group of miner buddies sitting around the mining-office lunch table could seriously skew the results. But, there isn't enough information to really say.)

But, it's still a fun database to play with.
posted by eotvos at 9:16 AM on November 18, 2014


why won't it let me search out the vital demographic which favours the chip butty
posted by poffin boffin at 9:20 AM on November 18, 2014


Whatever you get out of this post, i'm gonna create a more healthful recipe for Fidget Pie!
posted by Oyéah at 10:49 AM on November 18, 2014


This is totally a fraud. No one likes earwigs. No one! Not middle-aged Yorkshiremen, not anybody. (There may be one jellyfish-loving woman in Britain that eats veggy sausage rolls, but no more than one.)
posted by CCBC at 2:45 PM on November 18, 2014


The range of food reported in "favourite dishes" is ridiculously hugely varied.
Funnily enough favourite dishes are never listed in their favourite dishes. There also seems to be 6% of separation.

People who like Fidget Pie - favourite dish Lincolnshire Plum Loaf.
People who like Lincolnshire Plum Loaf - favourite dish Plum Tart.
People who like Plum Tart - favourite dish Plum Crumble.
People who like Plum Crumble - favourite dish Plum Tart.

People who like Tripes a la mode de Caen - favourite dish Steak with Bérnaise Sauce.
People who like Steak with Bérnaise Sauce - favourite dish Beef Bourguignon.
People who like Beef Bourguignon - favourite dish Chicken Chasseur.
People who like Chicken Chasseur - favourite dish Beef Bourguignon.

People who like Sesame Prawn Toast - favourite dish Special Fried Rice.
People who like Special Fried Rice - favourite dish Chicken Chow Mein.
People who like Chicken Chow Mein - favourite dish Special Fried Rice.

People who like Vegemite - favourite dish African Ground Nut Stew.
People who like African Ground Nut Stew - favourite dish Beans and Rice.
People who like Beans and Rice - favourite dish Three Bean Chilli.
People who like Three Bean Chilli - favourite dish Cannellini Bean Casserole.
People who like Cannellini Bean Casserole - favourite dish Tuscan Bean Stew.
People who like Tuscan Bean Stew - favourite dish Cannellini Bean Casserole.
posted by unliteral at 3:16 PM on November 18, 2014 [2 favorites]


This is totally a fraud. No one likes earwigs.

I think this just tells us that a certain percentage of people in Britain have emigrated from Bizarro-World.

"ME AM LOVE EARWIGS! SO CUDDLY AND SQUIRMY!"
posted by gamera at 5:33 PM on November 18, 2014




I beat Ben Goldacre to the punch, and I know what gravlax is. I'm on form this week.
posted by daisyk at 9:42 AM on November 19, 2014


Can't believe that Stewart Lee and Richard Herring have apparently become rivals. Boo.

Also can't believe that Ben Goldacre is my vector for last decade's comedy news. Oof.
posted by forgetful snow at 10:21 AM on November 19, 2014


I think their left-right political meter is simply broken. For example, fans of Asian Dub Foundation think Marx was basically right, and think that religion causes a lot of problems, but they're listed as all the way to the right end of the left-right spectrum.

Other than that, this is a lot of fun to play with.
posted by Umami Dearest at 1:34 AM on November 20, 2014


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