I have a confession: I love Zillow porn. Nearly every morning, when my coffee is still hot, I just type a wealthy zip code into the Zillow search tab and browse multi-million-dollar homes. If I’m feeling particularly bold, I set the minimum price to $18+ million. Then, at night, I pour a glass of red wine and search through more neighborhoods. I have a problem, but I just can’t find a twelve-step program for it. Unfortunately, Zillow porn is also a gateway drug to shopping: A heavenly closet needs beautiful clothes, and a cellar needs the finest bottles.
Zillow is like an adult adaptation of playing with Barbie dolls, allowing me to romanticize an aspirational lifestyle. Even the most subtle details — a free-standing bathtub, a gas stove, a heated towel rack — are inspiring. I gaze longingly at photos of expansive kitchens with large windows, and I imagine all the dishes I could cook there for large dinners — although I think hosting a party requires having friends. I visualize myself performing tasks that I’ve never attempted, like gardening in a greenhouse or playing tennis on my personal court in my backyard.
There’s something satisfying about criticizing the houses that I’ll never be able to afford. I scroll through photos of mansions and scoff, “Why did they choose those cabinets with those tiles?” How could a house priced at $54 million be so hideous and require so much renovation? Why does a new construction not have heated floors? It is a narcissistic but harmless practice that allows me to indulge some sense of moral superiority without confronting anyone or forcing me to defend my perspective. (Perhaps I do share some traits with the unhinged progressives on college campuses.)
Is there anything admirable about my odd, unexplainable, and somewhat pathetic tendency to survey houses I can’t buy? No, unfortunately. But I do derive an inordinate amount of joy from flipping through photo albums of mansions. Seeing a price cut on a listing is like a dopamine injection: Well, if the $20 million home has been cut by $200,000, then surely I can afford it, I tell myself while sitting in a semi-broken IKEA chair. I imagine that the excitement I experience doing a 3-D tour of a fabulous bedroom is the same jitteriness that a Mormon kid feels after accidentally taking a sip of something caffeinated; it’s exhilarating and dangerous but not quite sinful. But then, there’s the devastating crash; I feel crushed when I see that a beautiful home has been sold, and I think, “I should have bid.”
I’ve toured Miami, Beverly Hills, and the Hamptons all from my kitchen table in England. Now, I have a document saved on my computer titled “dream houses,” complete with Zillow links to ornate mansions I could only dream of cleaning as a maid — although I’d much rather live in them as a wife. Zillow porn is both comforting and depressing; it reminds me that beauty exists and that it is a luxury. I’ve concluded that chivalry is dead if no man is willing to buy me a $187,000,000 house in Palm Beach after a first date.
My (Zillow) Porn Addiction
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16.12.2023
I have a confession: I love Zillow porn. Nearly every morning, when my coffee is still hot, I just type a wealthy zip code into the Zillow search tab and browse multi-million-dollar homes. If I’m feeling particularly bold, I set the minimum price to $18 million. Then, at night, I pour a glass of red wine and search through more neighborhoods. I have a problem, but I just can’t find a twelve-step program for it. Unfortunately, Zillow porn is also a gateway drug to shopping: A heavenly closet needs beautiful clothes, and a cellar needs the finest bottles.
Zillow is like an adult adaptation of playing with Barbie dolls, allowing me to romanticize an aspirational lifestyle. Even the most subtle details — a free-standing bathtub, a gas stove, a heated towel rack —........
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