The audacious attempt by the BBC and leading academics to redefine social class in Britain into seven categories has come in for some criticism, and the accuracy of its “class calculator” – which helps you discover which class you’re in – has also been called into question.

I, for instance, discovered I was in the “technical middle class” – “distinguished by its social isolation and cultural apathy” – while filling in the survey as I made my way home from the opera, about which I had developed several firm opinions, accompanied by a varied and stimulating group of 40 to 50 friends.

In fact, what the seven classes defined by the BBC, LSE and Manchester University reminded me much more of was the drug-dealing hierarchy in The Wire, an American TV series the Guardian has written about once or twice before. So I slotted various characters into the various categories, and then tested my hunches by filling in the class calculator for each of these denizens of the fictional Baltimore. Here are the exclusive results.

Elite: the most privileged group, distinct from the other six classes through its wealth. This group has the highest levels of economic, social and cultural capital

This must be drug gang leader Avon Barksdale in his imperial phase: rich, well-respected, the untouchable master of all he surveys. Even when he is sent to prison he lives an ultra-comfortable life of riley (prison guards bring him his KFC, baseball games stop as he walks past). When I filled in the BBC class calculator for Avon, his earnings, property and wealth sent him off the scale. But you also have to identify the occupations of your friends, and he didn’t really know anyone with any of the jobs given (teacher, artist, shop assistant, etc), unless you counted his No 2 Stringer Bell as a chief executive, which I did, and that took Avon to the top of the chart again. I took the liberty of imagining he listened to jazz and hip hop, watched sports, went to the gym, and sometimes socialised at home, and all that meant he fell squarely into the category of elite.

Established middle class: the second wealthiest, scoring highly on economic, social and cultural capital

Marlo is the up and coming youngster who eventually moves up into the elite position, but – like many middle-class people who try to gain acceptance among the aristocracy – finds he is never fully comfortable with the expensive suits and snobbish company that surrounds him once he has got there. For class calculator purposes, I thought Marlo probably had less property than Avon, but was in the highest boxes for earnings and wealth. I’m not sure how many people from the various professions Marlo knew socially, but he did have a shop assistant killed at one point, so I ticked that one. Like Avon, however, Marlo comes out as elite – probably due to all that lovely money.

Jamie Hector as Marlo in The Wire. Photograph: HBO

Technical middle class: a small, distinctive new class group which is prosperous but scores low for social and cultural capital, distinguished by its social isolation and cultural apathy

Omar, the lone wolf who robs drug dealers, is definitely distinguished by his social isolation – but cultural apathy? As Omar explains, he “loves them Greek myths”. Cultural apathy is really more the province of someone like young dealer Bodie, who becomes confused about why the radio is breaking up as he drives out of his hometown for the first time, and muses wonderingly, “Why would anyone want to leave Baltimore, that’s what I’m asking ... ” I put Omar into the class calculator; his best friend and “bank” Butchie runs a bar, so I counted him as shop assistant and accountant, there being no category for someone who looks after all your stolen money for you – and Omar did come out as technical middle class ... indeed.

New affluent workers: a young class group which is socially and culturally active, with middling levels of economic capital

Michael, an intelligent, sensitive young man who gets trained up as a cold-blooded assassin, is probably the best fit for this category, although as the series progresses he becomes less socially and culturally active and more prosperous, which would take him into the technical middle class category - which is appropriate, since he seems to adopt the role of Omar in the final episode. When I put Michael into the class calculator I found there was no option in the cultural capital category for trips to the Six Flags theme park, but the entrance to that place is pretty imposing and old-fashioned, so I counted that as visiting stately homes ... Despite this, however, Michael was unceremoniously dumped into the precariat category. Harsh.

Traditional working class: scores low on all forms of capital, but is not completely deprived

Poor Cutty – who abandons the drug trade for life as an honest gardener and boxing trainer – is the best fit here. As his boss tells him, going straight makes for a hard life: “It’s hot. Every day. And you’re gonna be riding around in the back of that hard truck, every day. And your back’s going to be yelling at you, every day ... You want to stay on the straight, ain’t gonna be no big reward to it.” (The Sobotka family also find life in the traditional working class hard and the temptations of criminality difficult to ignore.) Cutty’s ex is a teacher, he knows farm workers and lorry drivers, sort of, and he certainly likes going to the gym ... but his low income and lack of wealth and property see him confined to the class calculator’s precariat category, too.

Emergent service workers: a new, young, urban group which is relatively poor but has high social and cultural capital

This sounds most like Wallace, the innocent young drug dealer who is out of his depth in the Barksdale gang and soon betrayed by them. He ended up in the precariat class too.

Precariat, or precarious proletariat: the poorest, most deprived class, scoring low for social and cultural capital

According to the class calculator, almost everybody in The Wire should be in here, but to me there’s one particularly obvious candidate: Bubbles, the heroin user and small-time thief who really is at the bottom of the ladder in The Wire’s Baltimore. The unfortunate Bubs certainly does score low for social and cultural capital, although at one point his drug mentor Waylon quotes some Kafka at him.

Andre Royo as Bubbles in The Wire. Photograph: HBO

As the class calculator has established, I'm a bit low on cultural capital myself, so if there are any other programmes that fit into the seven new class categories any better, please let me know below ...