Expensive Home Tours Heuristic #1

 Posted by on Tue, 2/5 at 2:18pm  underappreciated heuristic #1  Add comments
Feb 052019
 

Chantel Jean

ENC3310

Prof. Mason

 

Introduce Your Genre

  1. Identify your tentative “underappreciated” genre (or subgenre)
  • Expensive Home Tours
  1. What is interesting to you about this genre? Or, why might it be significant or otherwise worth paying attention to?
  • Expensive home tours allow people who can’t afford to tour or live in the pricey mansions to look in awe at the luxurious houses.
  1. Tentatively, define/describe your corpus (collection of texts/examples)
  • My collection of samples are videos of home tours that are price at $1,000,000 and more. They’re usually at least 10 minutes long, and capture are a good range of different style homes.
  1. Provide links (and/or titles) of five samples. (Try to gather samples from more than one “place” [or type] in order to obtain a diverse and accurate representation of the genre. For now, choose samples without significant deviations).
  2. $11MILLION PALACE IN THE MOUNTAINS! – https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=f_SP093Ybwk

 

  1. Touring A Massive $188 Million California Mega Mansion | Ryan Serhant Vlog #038 – https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=O4HmbEbCT2c

 

 

  1. $4.5M MANSION HOUSE TOUR (Luxury Mountain Home) –

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=U4wEfNf1T7U&t=189s

 

  1. $4,795,000 SMART HOME with FLOATING STAIRCASE & OCEAN VIEWS! https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=9K1DkRY8Ugg

 

  1. Dubai Billionaire $17 Million House Tour !!! https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=vuRKcAkCsHE

 

 

Describe the Context

  1. Setting: Where (in what context or medium) does the genre appear? How and when is it used? With what other genres does this genre interact? How?
    • Youtube
    • “Tour” genre
    • “Vlogs”
    • Most people go on a home tour as part of a vlog, or a video blog, causing the two genres to interact.
  2. Subject: What topics, issues, ideas, etc. are common to this genre? When people use this genre, what are they communicating about?

Wealth and uniqueness are common topics in the home tours. Viewers are constantly given the price of imported furniture and flooring, art pieces, famous designers who have added their custom pieces to the house, and how elite the location is. It’s more of a show to less wealthy people, a way to brag about what they can afford and sometimes it’s an actual attempt to sell the house. There’s also the topic of how they house is home to “the only piece in the world” in terms of art or furniture and accessories.

 

  1. Writers: Who writes the texts in this genre? Are multiple writers possible? What roles do they perform? What characteristics must writers of this genre possess? Under what circumstances do writers write the genre (e.g., in teams, on a computer, in a rush, for their profession? for fun?)?

The producers and filmmakers/Youtubers who post these expensive home tours are very wealthy themselves. They are responsible for reacting to the price of each art piece and detail in the home and showing their viewers how amazing the home looks by adding dramatic commentary that acknowledges what the viewers are already seeing. For example, if the tour guide says, “this chair is worth $10,000”, the Youtuber will say “guys this chair is worth $10,000? Do you guys see this? That’s insane!” The filmmakers create these videos to profit from their platform on Youtube. Most times, the Youtubers are paid according to their views, so they film these videos in an attempt to make decent money from the views of the people who watch it.

  1. Readers: Who reads the texts in this genre? Is there more than one type of reader for this genre? What roles do they perform? What characteristics must readers of this genre possess? Under what circumstances do readers read the genre (e.g., at their leisure, on the run, in waiting rooms)?

People who watch expensive home tours are usually bored, middle-class people who have some time on their hands. Expensive home tours are lengthy and include lots of talking, camera pivots, and “WOW” moments where the camera guy and tourist are shocked (but not really) at how expensive a feature of the house is. In order to tolerate the fake, exaggerated, uppity personas in the tours, the viewer would have to have down time.

  1. Exigency/Purpose(s): Why do writers write this genre, and why do readers read it? What purposes does the genre fulfill for the people who use it?

The “writers” would be the producers and Youtubers who film the videos. The purpose of the home tours is to give people who can’t afford these homes a look into the expensive homes that exist. People watch these videos to satisfy their own materialistic desires, without necessarily going out and buying the homes themselves. There’s also an underlying motivation, which is to brag about the money they have, and to sell the house to potential buyers by showing off the luxuriousness and uniqueness of the home on the Youtube platform.

 

 

  3 Responses to “Expensive Home Tours Heuristic #1”

  1. Anthony says:
    Tue, 2/5 at 4:46pm

    This is definitely a genre that is unappreciated, and is something that should be looked at more. The way i look at those million dollar home tours, are ways for people who are more fortunate, to somewhat home shop! I say this because if you were to ask majority of the people at FAU where one could get furniture, i bet there will be a lot of Rooms to Go, El Derado, and IKEA, to name some. However, for people of high class, the chances of them shopping at Rooms to Go is very small, and these house tours are somewhat a guide for rich people. As some may watch it to be in awe, i do see it as a productive thing for the certain class of people.

  2. Mallory says:
    Tue, 2/5 at 9:56pm

    Hey Chantel, I think its cool that you’re doing your underappreciated genre on exoensive home tours. I honeslty don’t understand why someone who cant afford these homes would go on these tours but I can see the futureristic goals in going on these tours. I remember when some of my FAU friends use to go riding around rich neghbirhoods in Boca Raton just to look at the mansions and say “I’m going to have a house just like that in the future.” I love that you mention the materialistic part on this genre, I’d love to see where you take this topic.

  3. Matty says:
    Wed, 2/6 at 11:10am

    It’s really interesting that the audience of this genre often doesn’t contribute to the audience of interested buyers in the estate– middle class, middle-aged people are working towards retirement rather than a mansion but there’s still money being made just from airing out the houses! I can definitely see how the hype factor is amplified by Youtubers “reactions,” but I wonder if the actual owners of the house gain anything other than attention from these tours, because with the limited income of the channel’s audience it’s not like they’re buying those types of things. Perhaps another over-exaggeration of the American Dream?