Stuff White People Like

It seems like the Blogosphere (ew) is all agog about Stuff White People Like, which is an amazing website. I love reading the comments from white people who are offended by it. I think white-people humor is great, like when Jackie Clarke and Jake Fogelnest took suggestions from their radio listeners to figure out the Whitest Song Ever (you know, "the kind of song you'd hear in a mall food court while planning a hate-crime"). The consensus: "Hey Ya."

Anyway, here are some of my favorite posts, which excerpts.

#62: Knowing what's best for poor people
"A great way to make white people feel good is to tell them about situations where poor people changed how they were doing things because they were given the ‘whiter’ option. 'Back in my old town, people used to shop at Wal*Mart and then this non-profit organization came in and set up a special farmers co-op so that we could buy more local produce, and within two weeks the Wal*Mart shut down and we elected our first Democratic representative in 40 years.' White people will first ask which non-profit and are they hiring? After that, they will be filled with euphoria and will invite you to more parties to tell this story to their friends, so that they can feel great."

#57: Juno
"...the film takes place in a fictional suburban town in Minnesota, but imagine the same storyline in say West Baltimore or Socorro, TX. My guess is that there would be less qurkiness, less acoustic guitar and zero references to Dario Argento."

#45: Asian Fusion Food
"Fusion restaurants offer a mix of all Asian foods (except Indian, but most don’t know that India is part of Asia) in an atmosphere that resembles a cocktail lounge in the West Village as opposed to Hong Kong. Basically you can eat exotic, in comfortable surroundings. Many are not shy to admit that the food is subpar and overpriced, but they still line up for hours to get in because they love the decor and the mix drinks."

#44: Public Radio
"White people love staions like NPR (which is equivalent to listening to cardboard), and they love shows like This American Life and Democracy Now. This confuses immigrants from the third world. They see the need for radio as a source for sports, top 40 radio and traffic reports but they don’t quite understand why people who can afford TVs and have access to Youtube would spend hours listening to the opinions of overeducated arts majors."

#38: Arrested Development
"The love it for a number of reasons. Firstly, since the show was cancelled before it jumped the shark, it’s effectively like a rocker that dies at 27. Also, the show got terrible ratings, meaning that it wasn’t ‘mainstream,’ which makes white people love it unilaterally. Other examples of shows like this are Twin Peaks and The Ben Stiller Show."


I can't wait until they write a post about The Wire.