I’m a white guy. A real white guy. I am so damn white, I need factor 35 sun cream to go skiing or sunbathing. I am so damn white, there is a genetic skin disease in my family going back an untold number of generations called Epidermolysis Bullosa, a rare affliction which renders the skin as fragile as a butterfly’s. Though the disease doesn’t discriminate for race or sex, it first showed up in my family in the area of the northern British Isles where my ancestors lived, and where asses don’t get whiter.
My two white brothers have it, my white father did, so did his white father, and his white father, his white mother… and that’s about as far back as we’ve been able to trace.
Born in Canada, so already a member of the lucky sperm club, I can count myself one of the luckiest damn white guys on the planet, because I don’t have it.
Still, I’m stuck with being white, and can’t do anything about that. I was born this way. This is who I am.
Apparently, some Americans have been carefully observing me and my fellow white people, and decided it’s time to let everybody know in a blog what white people like. Called Stuff White People Like, it has shot like a rocket to the second-most popular blog on wordpress.com in only its first five weeks of life, pulling in a total of more than six million hits as well as hundreds of comments for each post. The “About” page alone has nearly 2,200 comments last time I looked.
I read through it and shrug.
Musical comedy? I prefer stand-up.
Kitchen gadgets? Please.
Multilingual children? There are hundreds of millions of white people here in Europe, where the best jobs are hard to find without foreign language skills.
Threatening to move to Canada? I had a howl at that one, because at the end it says – possibly after someone pointed out that there are white people in Canada who read the blog – that white Canadians threaten to move to Europe.
Naw, we just look south and shake our heads at the latest example of how little regard or even awareness many Americans have for what goes on beyond their own borders. Having successfully thrown their cultural weight around the planet for more than a century, they automatically assume that what goes for white Americans goes for white people everywhere.
There are dozens more examples of Stuff White People are Supposed to Like. White Americans, maybe. Yuppie Americans for sure. Yuppie American dinks (dual income, no kids) absolutely. It stops there, though.
National Lampoon in its 1970s glory days once ran a Race Issue which, depending on how you took it, either tried its best to insult every race on the planet with equal measure, or satirise racism as a useless exercise because we all have traits which define us as individuals and, like it or not, as a group.
One look through the comments and you’ll see that readers of this new blog don’t know what to make of it, either.
Me? I prefer Weird Al. At least he’s funny.
© 2008 lettershometoyou
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The banner photograph shows the town of Britannia Beach, BC, Canada, where I grew up. It's home. But I don't live there anymore.
I clicked on a few posts about what they believe is “stuff white people like,” just out of curiosity because WordPress was constantly putting it on my Dashboard, but even white people in the United States don’t like their nonsense. They are just offensive to get the hits. This expat from France to the U.S. won’t be visiting them ever again, and I suggest others do the same.
I actually like that blog; I think the satire is clever. But I also really LOVE Weird Al.
I’ve been following it for a couple of weeks.
They are really targeting a small group even among white people in the United States. Even then, some of the things are not part of that white target group, but a different white target group. And some of it is just everybody? Divorce? I can’t find statistics in only a couple minutes, but I would be shocked if there weren’t one or more other races with the same or higher stats than whites.
Maybe it would be funny if it were more like “haha, what about that one person you know who really loves difficult breakups? haha, what a drama queen” instead of saying “all white people love difficult breakups” which just gives me a reaction of “????” instead of being amused or even offended.
Great post Ian! I hear you on the white skin! Mine never tans. Burns, Peels, Back to white. Even worse one side of my family is Native Indian (though the full blood ened with my Great Great Grandfather)and I have freckles! Where is the justice? My siblings used to tell me that I was adopted, that or it was Mom and the Mailman.
Loved the video
You were on the front page the other day when I signed in. Way to go!
The things western white people like would be a truly scary list if we were honest.
But but but but….surely you like bicycles and bike shops???
Cynematic
Hey, what’s wrong with kitchen gadgets?
I think that site is just one big joke, and a poor one at that. Big waste of time as far as I’m concerned.
But Weird Al? He rocks for sure. “Whiter than sour cream.” Yep.
I’m a United Statesian with a multi-cultural family. I tried out the blog once, because, as you said, it is so prominent. All I can say is: Can you imagine a title “Stuff_______people like”, filling in the blank with any other cultural label?
weird al rocks. so do segways
I fear this may well destroy you utterly, but you should know that the authors of SWPL are Canadian.
Destroy me utterly? Only if you think I can’t handle the truth and honest feedback. Thanks for pointing that out. There’s an interview with the author on The Assimilated Negro, in which the SWPL author says he grew up in Toronto’s Chinatown.
The post is a week old, so no excuse for not seeing it before posting. (insert red-faced smiley here.)
the “stuff white people like” blog was created by and for idiots.
Now I am running a couple of posts behind here but I have to say I really like this and laughed my ass off until I read your next post… which was akin to walking into a glass door you didn’t see.
Smooth moves.. but a great read.
I love the title of your post, and personally I find myself wondering: what if you’re brown and WANT to like stuff that white people like? Do you have to cake your face with baby powder and sneak into the club from the rear exit? Tricky stuff.
Naw, just be yourself and shed the labels.
Oh – update. Latest post says that white people are supposed to like soccer. Again – I’m not one of them. I watch it once every four years, and a highlight clip or two if I happen to catch it, but otherwise I find it so very dull.
How melanin levels affect social status and world hegemony? I’d like to see that