UPDATE: Read my correspondence with the Stuff White People Like Guy here.
A friend emailed me a link to Stuff White People Like, a blog that’s apparently storming the nation. Less than three months, and the guy’s already got 10 gazillion hits.
Funny stuff. It’s a tongue-in-cheek guide to fitting in with white people, by knowing what they like. By white people, he means the kind of people who live in Montclair. The sushi-eating, latte-swilling, MacBook-using followers of Barack Obama. Not to worry. The genius behind Stuff White People Like is white.
Examples of stuff white people like: David Sedaris, the “idea” of soccer, gifted children and, of course, yoga. Of course, the fun of Stuff White People Like is self-recognition. For example, #21 on the hit parade: Writer’s Workshops.
It’s no secret. White people want to be writers. Why wouldn’t they? Work 10 hours a week from a country house in Maine or England. Get called a genius by other white people, and maybe get your book made into a film.Every single white person harbors this dream. No matter what they tell you, all of them have at least one chapter of a novel stashed away somewhere.
Right he is! But some of us have many chapters, and some of us even have them published. And some of us are actually selling the same thing Stuff White People Like is. Self parody.
Take my description of Nina.
True, she wasn’t the renegade she’d been in her twenties, but she prided herself on being a good citizen of Mother Earth. She drove a Prius, recycled religiously, eschewed synthetics, shopped organic, drank bottled water, and bought all her stationery from third-world countries.
Well, Prius, organic food, bottles of water and recycling are on both our lists. He’s missing stationery from third-world countries. And I get extra points because my whole book is about the #2 item on his list: Religions that their parents don’t belong to.
Sure, white people may say they like “Kite Runner” or “Water for Elephants.” But what they really like is reading about their very own vanity and hypocrisy. That’s why white people like Stuff White People Like and why they will like “Fear and Yoga in New Jersey,” once they find out about it.
Of course, white people like Barack Obama, too. He’s so, like, Post-Modern, dude! Well, maybe. How Post-Modern are we? Enough to handle the complexities of Obama’s, and other multiracial people’s identity(ies)?
Victor Kulkosky
http://outofmymindblog.wordpress.com
How did we all become so insecure?
The blog is indeed humourous and full of good fun satire. I always find it amusing that people just love to read this stuff. He makes fun of people wanting to write novels etc. However his blog is really a running social commentary and as Seinfeld would say a “little something about nothing”. I wonder if could publish a novel??? That’s the thought that makes me smile.
[...] 21, 2008 by debragalant Now that you are super-famous and just got a $350,000 book deal, I hope you remember the little people, the random bloggers, the Debbie Galants of the world, who [...]
You really want to know what people like? – http://borderlineracist.wordpress.com
It’s not just “sweeping the nation”, it’s sweeping the planet.
I dont know, I am not a white person. But i dont see any difference with what the white people like than what i want. Who doesnt want the best things in life? If it is hypocrisy, or vanity wanting all those things, then as a brown-midget monekey looking filipino that I am maybe hypocritical and vain as well. Arent we all?
O, Sage brown-midget Monkey! You are too wise for this generation! So what is the “real” question, then? White People have secret racism, but brown people have secret greed? Have brown people spent too many years pretending they didn’t want that stuff anyway, since they thought that White People were keeping it from them? Now that Brown People finally found out that the White People weren’t really Keepers of the Cool Stuff but were pretending just because they’re jerks, what? Brown People have to admit to also being jerks? Or do we have to unilaterally agree that Yoga is Okay? Have I been desperately clinging to my 1/64 alleged Cherokee gene as an excuse for pretending I didn’t want any cool stuff because I couldn’t afford it? At the ripe old age of 42, I have yet to convince anybody that White People sometimes have a reason to be Angry, too. Anyway, I am glad that you, Brown Monkey, are out there, somewhere, somehow validating my existence. No, really, I am!
[...] Stuff White People Like Guy, Now that you are super-famous and just got a $350,000 book deal, I hope you remember the little people, the random bloggers, the Debbie Galants of the world, who [...]
‘O, Sage brown-midget Monkey! You are too wise for this generation! So what is the “real” question, then? White People have secret racism, but brown people have secret greed? Have brown people spent too many years pretending they didn’t want that stuff anyway, since they thought that White People were keeping it from them? Now that Brown People finally found out that the White People weren’t really Keepers of the Cool Stuff but were pretending just because they’re jerks, what? Brown People have to admit to also being jerks? Or do we have to unilaterally agree that Yoga is Okay? Have I been desperately clinging to my 1/64 alleged Cherokee gene as an excuse for pretending I didn’t want any cool stuff because I couldn’t afford it? At the ripe old age of 42, I have yet to convince anybody that White People sometimes have a reason to be Angry, too. Anyway, I am glad that you, Brown Monkey, are out there, somewhere, somehow validating my existence. No, really, I am!’
LOL
Thank you deb …