Some of my favorites posts include Indie Music, Not Having a TV, Being the Only White Person Around, and Divorce. But there's really no bad entry. They are all the best things ever written by anyone, ever. Maybe the best part of the blog are the comments of people pissed off by the blog. And there are plenty.
Let's see how long the hilarious Canadian people behind this blog are able to keep this up. My suggestions for future posts:
- Food Allergies
Dave Eggers/The Believer/McSweeney's- Ordering Clothing from Catalogs
- Graphic Novels
- Hiking and Hiking Apparel
- Finding Hardwood Floors We Had No Idea Were Under that Gross Old Carpet
- Rashomon
- Vermont
- Walking Tours
- Adopting Chinese Babies
- Samuel L. Jackson
- The New Yorker
- Will Smith
- Audio Tours
Hat tip to Captain Colossal.
Update: Chanchow informs me that the site already mentions Dave Eggers in the David Sedaris post.
Update 2: There's an entertaining NPR "Talk of the Nation" interview, with listeners' phone calls here (one caller mentions the ever popular Wearing Shorts in the Winter. Also see this article on SWPL in the L.A. Times. Also, I wanted to add the following to my list of suggestions: The Beastie Boys, Horseshoes, Canvas Tote Bags, Health Scares that Turn Out Fine, Horses, Wearing Shoes in the House, and Ultimate Frisbee.
14 comments:
My only solace on discovering my apparently overwhelming whiteness is confirming yours.
I gotta say, I really disliked the site OG. It equates white with yuppie.
Still, I like your ideas for future posts. They should just rename it Stuff Yuppies Like.
Kris: I agree that the site seems to target Yuppies, rather than White people, if by White we mean only race. I do think this may be a semantic thing, and may depend on what the people behind the site mean by "White"; plenty of Asians, Blacks, South Asians, Hispanics, etc., fall into the class/cultural category of "White" as the site seems to use that term (see e.g., Tiger Woods, Elaine Chow, me, Will Smith, Cuba Gooding Jr., et al.) and plenty of White people do not fall into that category.
It may be somewhat misleading for the site to call itself "Stuff White People Like", but I do think it's fair to posit a category of "White" that is class-based, and cultural (and therefore encompasses people of all sorts of ethnicities), just as we could probably easily set up a category of "Black" based on class and culture, etc. (I think lots of people in the "White" strata do this when they refer to things as "ghetto".)
Then again, I think it's all just sort of hilarious. I would welcome similar sites addressing Indian people, Asian people, etc.
White people like Mariachi bands in political commercials.
I saw this site about a week ago or so and had to admit to myself how close to home it hit. (I guess I'll never be that sizzling Latina I've always aspired to.)
Hey -- do you remember in college how the Baxter dining hall would occasionally have these little pieces of paper on the tables poking fun at campus-wide conspicuous consumption? In particular I remember the phrase "ecru JCrew sweater." Not exactly sure how this relates to the Stuff White People Like, but for some reason my memory was jogged.
I'm with Kris on this one. The authors of SWPL need to spend some time with white trash in e.g. West Virginia for a more balanced perspective.
Its satirical.
Remember satire?
Successful enough precisely because it misses the specific ethnic mark.
I won't go back, but it made me smile.
For a minute.
Did he talk about Kenny Loggins?
Or the apparently magical healing and nutritional properties of Milk?
I wish they'd talk about cereal. White people love cereal.
Damn! I love cereal.
What about Blues Traveler?
"I would welcome similar sites addressing Indian people, Asian people, etc." Really? What about the site "What Black People Like?" The fact that "white" people are a powerful group in the economy / society / culture allows this kind of racism to persist, but it is still racism. Anyone can pick anything they don't like and assign it to "white" people, and it is supposed to be funny? I thought this kind of humor went out in the 80s...the site also seems to me way more mean spirited than the octopus would like. The "white" straw man is just too easy...
Re the offensiveness of SWPL, it's worth noting, I think, that the site is written by a white person who says that he does/likes/relates to almost every item on the blog. In the NPR (!) interview with him I've now posted to, the blog's author addresses the criticism that his blog doesn't address "rednecks" or non-yuppie whites, etc.
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