What Do White People Like?

g under p

It was an instant-message conversation about the critically acclaimed but little-watched HBO drama "The Wire" that led to the creation of the blog Stuff White People Like. Christian Lander, a Los Angeles-based white Canadian and his friend Myles Valentin, a Filipino Canadian, were chatting about why white people didn't watch "The Wire." They began trading jokes about what whites occupied their time with instead: divorce, therapy, attending plays.

In January, Lander, with occasional assists from Valentin and others, began creating satirical posts about the social and cultural habits of a group of whites they were familiar with - middle-class liberals. They detailed this group's love of coffee, film festivals, and organic foods, then moved onto their enjoyment of difficult breakups, Barack Obama, and divorce. The blog has attracted a diverse group of fans and started conversations about race. It has also made some people uncomfortable and faced criticism from those who see racism in it.

But Stuff White People Like is a hit, already receiving more than 16 million hits in its short life. Inspired by the blog, fans have created copycat sites such as Stuff Asian People Like and Stuff Educated Black People Like. Landers recently signed a deal with Random House to turn the concept into a book after a competitive auction that allegedly reached six figures.

Here's the article by Vanessa E. Jones from the Boston Globe...Coffee and yoga and Prius and 'Juno'


Stuff White People Like: The Blog

I like ALL these things however I'm of a different background, so go figure!

Peace

chiquimonkey

interesting. i too like a *lot* of those things, but i'm hispanic. why does something have to be construed as "white"?

norm

chiquimonkey wrote:

interesting. i too like a *lot* of those things, but i'm hispanic. why does something have to be construed as "white"?

no kidding....fanch has been posting from there the past couple weeks and i read them and it's just not funny.....'m not saying i don't get it, i mean the people writing it aren't funny.....i'm white so i guess i don't have a sense of humor either...:rolleyes:

Allie

"to turn the concept into a book after a competitive auction that allegedly reached six figures."

for a LIST?! What the...

chiquimonkey

cutback wrote:

no kidding....fanch has been posting from there the past couple weeks and i read them and it's just not funny.....'m not saying i don't get it, i mean the people writing it aren't funny.....i'm white so i guess i don't have a sense of humor either...:rolleyes:

never saw it before this thread, it just sounds like an ignorant blog. i'd be curious to see what they think hispanics or black people like :rolleyes:

pjoasisrule

We should make a list and have everybody here just add one thing

pjoasisrule

chiquimonkey wrote:

never saw it before this thread, it just sounds like an ignorant blog. i'd be curious to see what they think hispanics or black people like :rolleyes:

Tacos and tequila, fried chicken and watermelon

Rygar

chiquimonkey wrote:

never saw it before this thread, it just sounds like an ignorant blog. i'd be curious to see what they think hispanics or black people like :rolleyes:

Why aren't the White or Asian people educated?

Allie

chiquimonkey wrote:

never saw it before this thread, it just sounds like an ignorant blog. i'd be curious to see what they think hispanics or black people like :rolleyes:

click on the article
it has links to 'stuff Asian people like'
and
:eek:
'stuff educated black people like :eek:!

I don't like that at all, everybody likes certain things.
And I feel like it is promoting stereotypes
Who doesn't like or wouldn't want to go to Paris. I don't like the things I like being 'rated' because 'I'm white'

I like them because I like them! Gosh doggit. It seems small minded and stupid
and people are starving in Africa and they pay them six figures to make a book out of that? It's A LIST. Gosh doggit.

chiquimonkey

Allie wrote:

click on the article
it has links to 'stuff Asian people like'
and
:eek:
'stuff educated black people like :eek:!

I don't like that at all, everybody likes certain things.
And I feel like it is promoting stereotypes
Who doesn't like or wouldn't want to go to Paris. I don't like the things I like being 'rated' because 'I'm white'

I like them because I like them! Gosh doggit. It seems small minded and stupid
and people are starving in Africa and they pay them six figures to make a book out of that? It's A LIST. Gosh doggit.

people are just plain fucking stupid, regardless of color.

ryan198

While probably controversial I think the point of this blog is to show how A. how ridiculous stereotyping is. B. Show that stereotypes are rooted in truths. In other words white people (whatever constitutes a white person is definitely up for grabs here) through history, and various social constructs have been drawn to value particular things that other ethnic groups (also contentious) may/may not have access too or a predominance in.

Often, since white people own most forms of the media, pop culture, and therefore get to define what is cool at various points in time (see for example: the history of hip hop), minorities oftentimes either outright reject white culture, are assimilated into it because of social surroundings, or capitalize from it (see again: hip hop, sports, etc.). Whiteness is definitely an under-thought of thing, because to bastardize the movie road trip it's often considered "the way".

PS-White people love Boston, Philadelphia, New York, and Pearl Jam.

edit- You don't just like things genetically, most things you come to like come from positive reinforcement or a love of negative reinforcement in your social surroundings.

DOSW

ryan198 wrote:

While probably controversial I think the point of this blog is to show how A. how ridiculous stereotyping is. B. Show that stereotypes are rooted in truths. In other words white people (whatever constitutes a white person is definitely up for grabs here) through history, and various social constructs have been drawn to value particular things that other ethnic groups (also contentious) may/may not have access too or a predominance in.

Often, since white people own most forms of the media, pop culture, and therefore get to define what is cool at various points in time (see for example: the history of hip hop), minorities oftentimes either outright reject white culture, are assimilated into it because of social surroundings, or capitalize from it (see again: hip hop, sports, etc.). Whiteness is definitely an under-thought of thing, because to bastardize the movie road trip it's often considered "the way".

PS-White people love Boston, Philadelphia, New York, and Pearl Jam.

edit- You don't just like things genetically, most things you come to like come from positive reinforcement or a love of negative reinforcement in your social surroundings.

I think you're looking too much into it. It seems to me like its just a dumb comedy list which gets cheap laughs using stereotypes.

I identify as white, but I don't think that really factors into it. I don't care what "white" could be substituted with, it still seems offensive. Especially if it wasn't made by that particular group to make fun of themselves. I just despise stereotypes... the existence and perpetuation of racial stereotypes is one of the reasons society is so fucked. And that's exactly what this list is.

FinsburyParkCarrots

Ask Fanch.

ryan198

You could be right that I'm looking to far into it...and it's definitely not helping general situations out. Thinking about it further, progress in this case is probably not actually progress but adding fuel to the fire. Kind of like how since the stereotypical ripped male body is encouraging more anorexia and bulimia in men, in much the same way that women had to deal with for years.

LONGRD

I love white people!

fanch75

You can take it a step further and check out "Stuff White Trash People Like"!

http://stuffwhitetrashpeoplelike.wordpress.com/

fanch75

This is my favorite post on the blog. It totally exemplifies all the people on The Moving Train forum who are so passionate & angry about politics, but probably do nothing else but type messages to each other on this BBS, thus raising "awareness."

http://stuffwhitepeoplelike.wordpress.com/2008/01/23/18-awareness/

#18 Awareness
January 23, 2008 by clander

An interesting fact about white people is that they firmly believe that all of the world’s problems can be solved through “awareness.” Meaning the process of making other people aware of problems, and then magically someone else like the government will fix it.

This belief allows them to feel that sweet self-satisfaction without actually having to solve anything or face any difficult challenges. Because, the only challenge of raising awareness is people not being aware. In a worst case scenario, if you fail someone doesn’t know about the problem. End of story.

What makes this even more appealing for white people is that you can raise “awareness” through expensive dinners, parties, marathons, selling t-shirts, fashion shows, concerts, eating at restaurants and bracelets. In other words, white people just have to keep doing stuff they like, EXCEPT now they can feel better about making a difference.

Raising awareness is also awesome because once you raise awareness to an acceptable, aribtrary level, you can just back off and say “Bam! did my part. Now it’s your turn. Fix it.”

So to summarize - you get all the benefits of helping (self satisfaction, telling other people) but no need for difficult decisions or the ensuing criticism (how do you criticize awareness?). Once again, white people find a way to score that sweet double victory.

Popular things to be aware of: The Environment, Diseases like Cancer and AIDS, Africa, Poverty, Anorexia, Homophobia, Midde School Field Hockey/Lacrosse teams, Drug Rehab, and political prisoners.

g under p

fanch75 wrote:

You can take it a step further and check out "Stuff White Trash People Like"!

http://stuffwhitetrashpeoplelike.wordpress.com/

OK what is this all telling ya?

I like some of those things however, however the burning of the couch thing is waaaaay out there.

Peace

markymark550

chiquimonkey wrote:

it just sounds like an ignorant blog

Aren't most blogs ignorant? I mean 99% of all the blogs I've ever read are written by morons....

TrixieCat

Am I the only finding some sort of humor in this?
It is a joke.
And you read the part about Target right? That was an april fool's joke.
Lighten up.
You can't get angry everytime you read something like that.

DOSW

TrixieCat wrote:

Am I the only finding some sort of humor in this?
It is a joke.
And you read the part about Target right? That was an april fool's joke.
Lighten up.
You can't get angry everytime you read something like that.

Yeah, it is clever and funny at times because it points out stupid aspects of things people do, but the fact that it relates those things to being white makes it ignorant and damaging.

Stereotypes are NOT funny, no matter who the subject is - white people, black people, whatever. This is no different than someone squinting and saying "me so horny, I rike fried rice" in a terrible Chinese accent.