March 31, 2008
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Stuff Old White People Like or White People Like Old Stuff
One of my favorite satirical blogs of late is www.stuffwhitepeoplelike.com. It’s a delicious send-up on racism and remarkably spot on! It “gently makes fun of the many progressive, educated, upper-middle-class
whites who think they are beyond ethnicity or collectively shared
tastes, styles or outlook. It’s essentially reminding them that they too are part of a group.” Not everyone loves it, but I guess I’m its target audience. For example, here’s a list of stuff white people like:- #92 Book Deals
- #91 San Francisco
- #90 Dinner Parties
- #89 St. Patrick’s Day
- #88 Having Gay Friends
- #87 Outdoor Performance Clothes
- #86 Shorts
- #85 The Wire
- #84 T-Shirts
- #83 Bad Memories of High School
- #82 Hating Corporations
- #81 Graduate School
- #80 The Idea of Soccer
- #79 Modern Furniture
- #78 Multilingual Children
- #77 Musical Comedy
- #76 Bottles of Water
- #75 Threatening to Move to Canada
- #74 Oscar Parties
- #73 Gentrification
- #72 Study Abroad
- #71 Being the only white person around
- #70 Difficult Breakups
- #69 Mos Def
- #68 Michel Gondry
- #67 Standing Still at Concerts
- #66 Divorce
- #65 Co-Ed Sports
- #64 Recycling
- #63 Expensive Sandwiches
- #62 Knowing What’s Best for Poor People
- #61 Bicycles
- #60 Toyota Prius
- #59 Natural Medicine
- #58 Japan
- #57 Juno
- #56 Lawyers
- #55 Apologies
- #54 Kitchen Gadgets
- #53 Dogs
- #52 Sarah Silverman
- #51 Living by the Water
- #50 Irony
- #49 Vintage
- #48 Whole Foods and Grocery Co-ops
- #47 Arts Degrees
- #46 The Sunday New York Times
- #45 Asian Fusion Food
- #44 Public Radio
- #43 Plays
- #42 Sushi
- #41 Indie Music
- #40 Apple Products
- #39 Netflix
- #38 Arrested Development
- #37 Renovations
- #36 Breakfast Places
- #35 The Daily Show/Colbert Report
- #34 Architecture
- #33 Marijuana
- #32 Vegan/Vegetarianism
- #31 Snowboarding
- #30 Wrigley Field
- #29 80s Night
- #28 Not having a TV
- #27 Marathons
- #26 Manhattan (now Brooklyn too!)
- #25 David Sedaris
- #24 Wine
- #23 Microbreweries
- #22 Having Two Last Names
- #21 Writers Workshops
- #20 Being an expert on YOUR culture
- #19 Traveling
- #18 Awareness
- #17 Hating their Parents
- #16 Gifted Children
- #15 Yoga
- #14 Having Black Friends
- #13 Tea
- #12 Non-Profit Organizations
- #11 Asian Girls
- #10 Wes Anderson Movies
- #9 Making you feel bad about not going outside
- #8 Barack Obama
- #7 Diversity
- #6 Organic Food
- #5 Farmer’s Markets
- #4 Assists
- #3 Film Festivals
- #2 Religions their parents don’t belong to
- #1 Coffee
#49 caught my eye as I made dinner the other night:The love affair between white people and old stuff literally goes back
for hundreds of years. In the older days, it was almost exclusively
contained within the realm of furniture. While white people still love
antiques, they don’t always fit so well with a modern lifestyle and
kitchen. Read more…I’m not a cook by any stretch of the imagination, but I can at least make macaroni & cheese from a box. As I perused my cupboard I found the box to your left. Note the expiration date.
How BAD could mac & cheese get though? As long as there were no bugs in it, I’d be OK, right?
Well, even though it looked like this:
It tasted like this:
Now I know why I’m such a packrat. It’s because I’m white! Whether it’s this old poem I wrote in 1972 that I recently found:
Or emails that I’ve had for over 12 years!
When I set up my new computer last week, I found that Outlook 2006 has a feature that sends all of your calendar entries to your cell phone as text messages. Sounds great, right?
I thought so too until Verizon called me to tell me I had overload my account with over 2000 text messages. They graciously offered to delete them for me, but I still got almost 200 on my phone! Apparently the feature does not yet allow you to filter by date, and since I have my Outlook .pst file from 1994…well, note the date:
So I guess I’m just your average white guy…who likes old stuff. I’m going out now with my gay friends to have coffee and talk about Barack Obama. We may even bitch about high school and plan a dinner party before heading out for some Asian Fusion food. Good times!
On a related note, Wes alerted me to this this:Not being Asian I don’t feel qualified to comment, though I think Wes’ points are well taken. He writes “SWPL is generally aimed at holding up the privilege
of a subset of folks to critical examination. It does this in two ways.
It holds up a stereotype that can only exist because of privilege.” I do believe that satire effects minorities differently than majorities. Sharon Lee, of Model Minority wrote about this recently. I’ll let you decide for yourselves what to think about all this. I’ll be interested to hear!
Satire as Racial Backlash Against Asian Americans
Date: Friday, March 28 @ 11:23:59 EDT
Topic: Academia
By Sharon S. Lee
© 2008 Inside Higher Ed
February 28, 2008Imagine for a minute if student leaders at elite
college campuses devoted themselves to mocking black people or Jewish
people or gay people. I’m not talking about drunk students posting
pictures of their offensive parties on Facebook, but student newspaper
editors – thought of as being both smart and progressive – giving space
over for the sole purpose of making fun of people because of their
background. It’s hard to imagine. And yet recently this phenomenon of
racial caricatures as “satire” has emerged with Asian Americans as the
object of the jokes.
Why Asian Americans? After all, Asian American
college students tend to make headlines as super students, attending
prestigious private and public colleges at rates way above their state
demographics (hence they are “over-represented”) and as excelling
academically above and beyond any other racial group, whites included.
This “model minority” image is not new and has been around since at
least the late 1960s, with Asian Americans often embraced as symbols of
the merits of hard work and individual effort, all undertaken without
complaint or political agitation. So … shouldn’t that mean that Asian
Americans would be seen as well integrated — academic and otherwise —
with white students? Read more…
Comments (20)
I’ve checked out that site (stuffwhitepeoplelike) – I guess I don’t get it. Oh wait, I’m Asian…
Did you just publish your phone number in the picture of the Outlook Mobile Notification? Or was it someone else’s number and this is a very sophisticated prank?
@ElusiveWords - Yep, that’s my #. Feel free to call any time. LOL :)
Oh my goodness – you may be getting a lot of prank calls soon. How many people will read your blog anyway! LOL! I Promise I won’t prank you more than once a week! LOL! :)
i’m normal, everyone else is messed up! :P
There are a whole lot of “parrot blogs” (i.e. copycat blogs of “stuff ____ people like”) out there….a few of them are funny, but most are just trying too hard.
“Stuff white people like” is turning into a book!
forget WHITE people – i’m all about that site myself. I think it’s Stuff Americanized Yuppie People Like That They’ve Seen in Movies. Oddly enough, I related less with the Stuff Asian People Like and even less with that party pooper Sharon Lee. I lost interest after the 2nd paragraph. TLDR
haha. I posted the site up awhile ago :] Coffee #1 >.< Thanks to Starbucks!
1972? i wasn’t even born that yet.
your page has lots of entry. i really am amazed to know that next to coffee, it’s religion parents don’t belong to comes second. asian girls is on the next 10 and i thought oprah dominates.
by the way, the noodle that tasted like a box made my day.
@blessedbumble - My phone never rings…I have no friends
@qccan - Normal people don’t have snake profile pics!
@youthinasia613 - Yeah, I just read about his book deal. He got offered a $350,000 advance. I wish someone would offer me that for my blog! LOL
@MaximMan - SAYPLTTSIM…..hmmmm. If you come up with a better acronym you might just get a movie deal. Screw the book advance!
@aliceandrandy - Believe it or not, the first time I ever tried Starbucks was in the Philippines! True story.
@Renatojr3 - Thanks for making me feel even older! LOL
i’ll have to spend some time there – i’ve got lotsa old stuff! – but it’s off to the shower now! peace, Al
eerr… i like a dozen from that whole list. guess that means that i might be partially white ;p
@rudyhou - But how many do you like on the Asian list??
@CareyGLY - about the same, 14. but then again, it’s out of 55, not 92. guess that certified me as a true asian. oh well, don’t think i can live without my rice and tiger balm anyways ;)
I thought there’s a word to describe those people..”Nansi”? ( I don’t know how to spell it, LOL)
Ah, I remember that poem, you showed it before. =]
Heh, i should either blog faster or get with the times. Most of my last post on the Asian thing was actually influenced by this one. i should’ve written an outline though to stay coherent. i don’t know what to think about the subject sometimes. i know many Asians who don’t mind being considered a minority, but would have a problem comparing themselves with groups of Latinos and blacks. But if Asians as a minority can do well, then what does it say for any other group of people? Maybe it is the white rice.
@jonny515 - LOL, that’s funny. Your last post was influenced by my post??
LOL at the white rice comment.
Great Post! Thanks for sharing!!
Poetry Contest
@poetryfanatic - Thanks!
I went to Stuff Asian People Like. It’s lame and told the blogger that in several comments. He deleted my comments! So I said, “# 22- Insecurity…”
@wangkon936 - LOL
That’s great!!