Beverlywood the Place

The neighborhood in the internet series Beverlywood...

...is based on the west Los Angeles, CA suburb with the same name. It’s re-imagined as a locale ‘somewhere adjacent to Beverly Hills and Hollywood’, more in terms of ideology clash than physically. In real life, though the 90034 zip code doesn’t sound quite as sexy as say, 90210, Beverlywood still holds substantial real estate value. An incorporated community of mostly homeowners and few people who rent, the real life Beverlywood probably isn’t as sexy or colorful as it’s New Media alter ego either.

On the show Beverlywood, the residents are divided into two groups that are archetypal to LA. Those are the corporate track ‘yuppie’ more familiar on the East Coast, and the aspiring ‘artist’ which the nation provides California with an inexhaustible supply of. A typical Southern Cal yuppie would live in a house with a mortgage and homeowner’s association, while the broke artist would live on a narrower street in some form of tiny apartment. That dichotomy in residence is the tip of the iceberg of differences in lifestyle.

Yuppies ply their trade in corporate offices through education and conformity to large organizations and society. They put stock in things like owning property, having a place to call home, cherishing the value of symbols like wedding rings, pinning their happiness on a soul mate, and living close to a good bakery. Artists, on the other hand, pin their happiness on an over-the-horizon career break, which would allow them the trimmings of a yuppie lifestyle, without the conformity or education. Until then they are essentially for sale, having to continuously draw the line between what they are or aren’t willing to do to survive. It is this difference, and the friction it causes during competition, which is the root of Beverlywood’s drama.

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