So, I guess that blog is pretty popular, or why write a whole TNR piece about it? I gave the front page a look. I got the feeling you could "read" it by just glancing at the titles and noticing there were some paragraphs under them — the way you read The Onion, right? But I decided to really read one post, because it was on one of my long-running themes: men in shorts. The post is called just called "Shorts" (along with its number, 86), and not what it's really about: men in shorts, and already I get a vibe that this blog is about white men, not white women. The "white dude" who wrote the TNR piece, Adam Sternbergh, is not concerned with the maleness of the perspective, but with what he perceives as a thinly cloaked attitude of white superiority.
But back to the post on shorts (and good lord, that post has over 400 comments). ..Eh, I was going to find something to excerpt, but it's not that interesting.
So, let's look at the full list and pick something else.
Aha! #8 Barack Obama!
Immediately, I suspect Adam Sternbergh of being an Obamaton and this is his real grudge against the blog. Does this hit a little close to home, Adam?
Posts
36 comments:
So the TNR writer is upset because Stuff White People Like doesn't make white people feel guilty enough?
Oh, thank you so much. I just found a new blog home.
It was nice knowing you.
i don't like Friends though.
He's upset that TNR isn't a STuff WFite People Like icon the way NPR is.
Of course, for "White People" read, "mildly self-loathing over educated upper-middle class white people from the coasts and the college towns in between".
Yep. It's like all those kids who think they're getting tattoos and piercings to stand out from the crowd - and end up just like everyone else...or all those White Liberals who think the Reverend Dr. Jeremiah A. Wright, Jr.'s anti-Americanism is no big deal - while the Oh-Bah-Muh's poll numbers crater.
Too funny.
Ann:
"Stuff White People Like" is one of the few blogs that has compelled me to go back and read all the postings. In my opinion, the bloggers have a pretty high batting average and are remarkably dead on. About half of the posts allow me to chuckle in a self-superior way, while the other half make me wince ("Ouch! How did they know that about me?").
It's a bit scary at times -- kind of like those catalogs you get in the mail, filled with items that you think are really cute or desirable, and then you realize just how well some demographics marketing department has you buttonholed.
But a great blog. ..bruce..
I don't like coffee or tea though.
I don't like having gay friends either.
I do love Yoga, NPR, Wes Anderson movies though.
I am an urban east coaster though that makes quite a bit of money so it that respect I am the sterotype of what red state America hates.
It's not easy being white.
If we see a pic of Obama in shorts will that swing the Althouse vote?
The quality of the articles is a bit uneven, but there are lots of gems there. Maybe the funniest thing is the number of truly oblivious commenters who just don't get it.
I got the feeling you could "read" it by just glancing at the titles and noticing there were some paragraphs under them — the way you read The Onion, right?
Holy cow, but I thought that was only me that did that!!
Maybe Adam is just another humor-challenged lefty who takes himself way too seriously.
Holy cow what a funny site. It's easy to disagree with this or that post but overall it's hilarious... I particularly liked this: "When engaging in a conversation about corporate evils it is important to NEVER, EVER mention Apple Computers, Target or Ikea in the same breath as the companies mentioned earlier. White people prefer to hate corporations that don’t make stuff that they like."
As a non-white guy who finds the blog hilarious, I will try to explain why it's funny to me.
First, it's written as some sort of guide on how to get along with white people (mainly liberal urban yuppies), as if they are such a foreign culture to their nonwhite counterparts in America.
Second, I find the funniest posts to be about the stuff I don't see as many nonwhite people doing - Co-ed sports, Outdoor performance clothes, Whole foods, Veganism, etc. I've had conversations about these things before, in the context of "I wonder why I'm the only minority I see when I'm camping/hiking." But the conversations aren't always just about "why do white people like this?" but rather "why don't my Asian/black/latino friends do this, too?"
Still, the most amusing lines are usually the ones where the author casually mentions as an aside a thing white people like which has pretty much nothing to do with the title of the post. See, for example, the last sentence of Co-ed Sports.
I am a white guy... and I think the blog is successful because I laugh at the stuff that applies to me just as much as the stuff where I enjoy seeing other people skewered. Just recently I bought a 400 dollar North Face jacket. I bought it partly because we had some real cold days this winter, but I'll be the first to admit I like the social acceptance it bestows. I can be as shallow as the next guy, but I try not to be hypocritical about it.
I think the blogger means, stuff "well off, extremely liberal" white people like. Other than coffee, there juat isn't a whole lot on that list I really like. I suspect a lot of red stater white people feel the same way.
And Shane, if you're not fond of "Co-ed sports, Outdoor performance clothes, Whole foods, Veganism, etc.", you'll fit right in.
"I am an urban east coaster though that makes quite a bit of money so it that respect I am the sterotype of what red state America hates."
You would be if red state America hated urban east coasters that makes a lot of money, but since they don't, you aren't. Now if you modify that to East coaster who despises middle America and thinks civilization ends at NYC upper east side, then yeah. You then are the stereotype that red state America hates.
I found this blog about 3 weeks ago and it is funny. Turned my 26 year-old Manhattan dwelling niece onto it and she says she and many friends love it.
sorry that blog is not very funny
i guess its funny if you think 'wait wait dont tell me' is funny
or if garrison keillor still amuses you with his warm wit and wisdom
must be something about being white and having gone to grad school
that makes those things funny
tommy the boy whose computer i use
refused to let me look at that site any longer
said he couldnt stand it
he said this site is funny
yes it has crazy videos and irish jokes etc
thats called funny
unless of course you have an advanced degree
or live like i do in cambridge mass
If Hillary wins, I'm (#75) moving to Canada. Both Vancouver and Toronto provide easy access to (#6) organic produce and (#42) sushi.
The SWPL blog does have a good handle on lefty white folks, sort of like the NYTimes.
It's Prairie Home Companion for people born after 1970.
titusgrandjetewithalaybackintothesplits said...
I don't like coffee or tea though.
We may have to investigate you. Your loyalty is now in question.
"Stuff White People like" is pretty funny. The humor is similar to something I had seen before: Black People Love Us!
I find the black people love us site to have more of an edgy feeling though.
It strikes me that this is not so much a list of what white people like as it is a listing of the predilections of the upper classes of our modern cities. The only folks who are comfortable with most of the items on this list were probably raised in the suburbs and now own lofts in cities like New York, (Manhattan or Brooklyn being the only acceptable boroughs)and decry the weekend invasion of their new turf by the "bridge and tunnel" types from off-island.
Those working class or lower middle class whites, wouldn't be caught dead with the Sunday Times and couldn't spot Michel Gondry in a police lineup. For those of you not familiar with anyone so dissimilar from yourself, think Tony Soprano, and imagine his reaction if you asked him whether he thought "The Darjeeling Limited" captured the terrible ennui of the postindustrial American family.
oh but joe
there are those sorts of people here
in cambridge mass where i hang out
i mean you dont have to live in new york
although a new yorker cant imagine that
but i still think that blog isnt funny
and my situation doesnt resemble tony soprano at all
mom here at the house is european
french specifically
so she knows a lot about ennui
which she alternates with anger
and lots of bad french words
she isnt bipolar just french
anyway my job is capturing the not so terrible food spills
of the postindustrial franco-american family
but let me tell you as a cockroach
i have zero interest in anything that says darjeeling on it
It's Prairie Home Companion for people born after 1970.
>>>shudder<<<
Sorry for the long hiatus from here (in case anyone actually missed me, LOL).
SWPL is a really funny blog; thanks for the tip. I found myself getting sucked into several of the posts in a rather vortex-like manner. ;-)
I especially was amused by the commenters on whom satire appears to be lost. (My brother-in-law runs a company that specializes in satire, and you should see the angry emails they get from time to time from people who just don't get the concept at all.)
titusgrandjetewithalaybackintothesplits
Please don't trip over or land on the rare clumbers, please.
Hey, reader's back!
White People Like reader_iam, don't they?
"Yes we white people heck I bet all people like and missed Reader Iam."
That is also the name of a blog coming soon to the internets near you.
BTW, After reading the NR writer review of the SWPL blog, I had a thought. They should do a post called "Humorless Scolds"- that seems to be a white thing too.
AJ Lynch I have mentioned this before but if you are going to use the Manhattan analogy you can't use "upper east side". Yes, the upper east side has many liberals living in it but the upper east side is known for being the conservative area of Manhattan.
In order for your statement to have any relevance you need to change it to upper west side. That is the true liberal area.
I hate having to educate flyover country here but I will if I must
Sorry Titus but I am afraid I am uneducable. Plus I am a dope.
Don't apologize AJ. The statement you made could be effective you just got the wrong zip code and as a result it lost it's punch.
Buck up little guy.
Upper East Side is the zip code that gives republicans most of their money in the US. The Podhoretz and Kristols are famous upper east siders. But then again so is Woody Allen.
The Upper East Side has the most expensive in NYC and that says quite a bit.
most expensive real estate that is.
500 square feet studios start at about 1 million.
I agree that the blog is funny and is not so much pointed at white people but to upper middle class white liberal yuppies.
As a resident of liberal yuppie hell (and pretty much the only person in my neighborhood who admits to being a Republican other than the guy with the McCain sign) I think it has my neighbors pegged out well.
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