The Unfogged gang has three posts in as many days about a wildly popular new blog about which I was previously unaware called Stuff White People Like.
It’s the kind of blog only white people could like: a blog about white people written by white people for other white people that makes fun of white people. Ironically, it makes substantial use of irony, which is one of the things that it makes fun of white people for liking.
Fontana Labs figures that white PhDs will over-analyze the site whereas Ogged seems to take its message to heart, concluding that, “the only proper emotions for reflective affluent Americans are shame and self-loathing.” Then again, he could just be being ironic here, as white people are wont to do.
I find the site and its premises rather amusing.
First, is there any other culture that so hates itself for its own success? Our forebearers spent the last several centuries clawing out of the the deprivations of life on this planet so that the main problem we’re faced with is figuring out how to burn more of the calories we’re consuming so as to not get fat. Rather than seeing this as a good thing, though, we’re apologizing for taking more than our fair share of the world’s wealth — despite creating the wealth to begin with.
Second, most white people would not recognize themselves in the blog. My parents certainly wouldn’t. They might have spent $15 for a sandwich once or twice out of desperation but they sure as hell weren’t happy about it. They don’t have expensive bicycles, recycle, listen to Indie music, or have any clue who any of the directors that white people are supposedly obsessed about are.
Instead, the “white people” about whom the blog is written are the characters of “Friends.” Or, at least, people like that: young, affluent, white people without kids living in a handful of major metropolitan areas.
My wife and I are ‘tweeners in this regard. She moved to the D.C. area shortly out of college thirteen years or so ago and I moved up here in my mid-30s about six years ago. My financial sensibilities are still more Middle America than hers but we certainly spend more money on dining out and similar amenities than I’d have dreamed possible before moving up here. Still, I’ve hardly made the conversion to the lifestyle in question and am incredibly unlikely to do so at this point in my life.
- I’m not much for sandwiches, period, since I pretty much eat just the meat and bread. I can be talked into a good Philly cheese steak although, like John Kerry, I eschew the Cheez Whiz for Provolone.
- We love Netflix, although we tend not to watch a lot of Indie flicks (mostly owing to my tastes rather than my wife’s). We did like Juno, though.
- I don’t own a bicycle or a Toyota Prius. If they made a 350Z Roadster that ran on something other than gasoline, though, I’d consider buying one. Probably used.
- I don’t use much health care, thankfully, but prefer good-old modern medicine when necessary.
- Not much of a Japan fetish, although I did like Speed Racer and Ultra Man quite a bit when I was a kid.
- We do have a fair number of kitchen gadgets, I suppose.
- We love dogs and have two of them. And two cats, to boot.
- I really don’t get Sarah Silverman.
- Living by the water appeals to me but I don’t actually live by the water. The Potomac River is within walking distance, I guess.
- Not much for vintage.
- I rather like Whole Foods but don’t much shop there any more since I no longer pass by one on my way home from work.
- My wife and I both have Political Science degrees. Indeed, I’ve got three of them.
- I don’t really read the Sunday New York Times. I used to read the Sunday Washington Post but now just scan parts of both of them — along with numerous other sources — online before my wife gets up.
- We do like Asian Fusion. We like regular Asian, too, for that matter.
- I’ve listened to NPR for years.
- Plays are okay, I guess, but we really don’t go to a lot of them. I’ve never been to a film festival, though.
- Like Alan Jackson, I like my sushi Southern fried.
- I’m a PC guy, not a Mac guy. My wife does have an iPod, however.
- I’ve never seen “Arrested Development.” Maybe it’ll be one of those series we watch after the fact via the miracle of Netflix.
- We are in fact doing minor renovations on our house on an ongoing basis. Worse yet, it’s not an old fixer-upper with character but rather a 15-year-old Colonial. But we’re nonetheless replacing carpet with hardwoods and planning on upgrading our kitchen appliances.
- I actually kind of like breakfast places but seldom actually eat in them. Mostly, because I don’t like them enough to stand in line for an hour.
- Neither “The Daily Show” nor “The Colbert Report” are really aimed at me. We TiVo’d the latter for a couple weeks but the shtick wore thin pretty quickly.
- We eat steak a couple times a week, so we’re in no danger of becoming vegetarians, let alone vegans.
- I’ve never been snowboarding in my life. I went skiing a couple of times as a kid living in Germany.
- We very much have a TV. Indeed, we’ve got three HDTVs, two of which are at least 60 inches.
- Neither of us have ever run a marathon. I’ve done a handful of 10ks, though, in the distant past. Mostly, though, because the Army made me run.
- We do like wine and microbrewed beer.
- We’ve got just the one last name. My wife made her old last name her middle name but she doesn’t hyphenate it.
- We do travel quite a bit, mostly to the First World and tropical vacation spots in the Third. We like the former better, though, and are likely to do more of that.
- I actually work for a non-profit now, although they don’t pay me six figures and there’s quite a bit of both accountability and pressure. My wife’s firm makes a very nice profit, though.
- I find Barack Obama likable enough but decidedly don’t want him to be our next president.
