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Why I Don't Like StuffWhitePeopleLike
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Posted By:
bort742 at 04/19/2008 10:29:59 PM
Comment:
I like StuffWhitePeopleLike and I'm a little confused about what the author has a problem with. The joke is supposed to be how people take themselves so seriously and I think you can say that without being mean-spirited. Or is that not "edgy" enough? Why can't humor just be good natured fun? We don't expect every movie to be Schindler's List. -
Posted By:
bort742 at 04/19/2008 10:07:49 PM
Comment:
I like StuffWhitePeopleLike and I'm a little confused about what the author has a problem with. The joke is supposed to be how people take themselves so seriously and I think you can say that without being mean-spirited. Or is that not "edgy" enough? Why can't humor just be good natured fun? We don't expect every movie to be Schindler's List. -
Posted By:
jean-jean at 04/11/2008 3:54:34 PM
Comment:
How about we spend even more time talking about white people....
there is no escape... -
Posted By:
jean-jean at 04/11/2008 3:53:35 PM
Comment:
How about we spend some more time talking about white people....
there's no escape.... -
Posted By:
elledub1920 at 04/09/2008 11:06:38 AM
Comment:
SWPL was meant to be a foray into SATIRICAL HUMOR
there is a time and a place for everything and, as a Black woman, I can admit that sometimes a look into the absurdity of habits that white people have isn't necessarily a bad thing
not everything has to a be a biting look at race/culture, etc. to be relevant or even just popular. -
Posted By:
elledub1920 at 04/09/2008 11:04:27 AM
Comment:
i understand how one could say they are trivializing a serious subject but there is a time and a place for everything; he clearly created the site as a source of satirical humor and succeeded. -
Posted By:
Macon D at 04/06/2008 1:45:02 AM
Comment:
I completely agree--the site trivializes a serious, unexamined subject. Unlike, say, my site, which examines whiteness more carefully, or at least tries to:
http://stuffwhitepeopledo.blogspot.com/
Peace out,
Macon D -
Posted By:
brownstocking at 04/03/2008 4:55:01 PM
Comment:
I didn't like Stuff Educated Black People Like, either. Not particularly original snark, and folks take themselves too seriously. -
Posted By:
lizo11 at 03/29/2008 5:05:03 PM
Comment:
Lighten up. SWPL is funny. Not all satire has to be biting. Pointing out the absurdity of beliefs and habits that white people (like me) are not fully conscious of is enough. -
Posted By:
lizo11 at 03/29/2008 5:01:52 PM
Comment:
Lighten up man. SWPL is funny. Not everything has to be biting satire. -
Posted By:
popeye at 03/26/2008 6:53:34 PM
Comment:
I started to respond to this great post, and I moved it over to my (nascent and soon extinct) blog because it was too long to enter in the comments here. In any case, not trying to spam or piggyback, but the comment is here http://monkeyfluffer.wordpress.com/
Thanks for your post! -
Posted By:
El Badasso at 03/26/2008 4:04:04 PM
Comment:
Ah yes, a criticism of a lazy, indulgent blog based on simplistic reductions of pop culture. No offense Quixote but you realize you've got at least another 9 million windmills to go right? Of course he's going to "play on some or another aspect of their race for smug fun and profit." That's the model. You create some thing with buzz built on ONE thing that makes enough noise to get it out there, hype into something larger then sell it to the old media for a profit. Rinse and repeat. And to expect greater from the internet...well let me refer you to the Don Quixote metaphor earlier.
It's the web. It's the same medium that brought us the dancing hamster and Perez Hilton. Compared to the rest of the WWW, SWPL is more offensive than some stuff to some people but less offensive than most sites to most people. It's humor. It's hit or miss by design. You? Clearly a miss. Random House? Apparently a hit. Which was, again, in the create to sellout paradigm, pretty much the first audience considered for said humor.
As you've said earlier, a lot of this is you being a player hater. But when the object was a very shallow goal of selling out from jump street - just like the 10,000 others with youtubes in tow - you can't hate the player. You can only hate the game. -
Posted By:
K187 at 03/25/2008 4:53:09 PM
Comment:
SWPL is hilarious. If blacks can lampoon each other--and do they ever--then white folk can do the same. This guy at SWPL is obviously mocking self-important, self-righteous, uppity, left-wing, urban white people. What the hell is not to LOVE about that???????????? -
Posted By:
frida0h at 03/25/2008 9:26:11 AM
Comment:
I never realized how white I was until I read SWPL. Don't agree with all of it, but it all struck my funny bone. No wonder my some of my black friends think I'm a white idiot. -
Posted By:
LoveTruth at 03/24/2008 11:04:21 PM
Comment:
Joven t,
You are beyond offensive, ignorant and typical. You throw out statistics without looking at the root cause or what it is a consequence of. You make assumptions based on you prejudice simple mind. Please enlighten yourself before trying to engage in adult conversation. -
Posted By:
DeepFried at 03/24/2008 10:33:52 PM
Comment:
Thank you for giving SWPL the takedown it deserves. I'm a 46 year old white guy, mostly conservative, who's no expert on race matters but reading SWPL's latter-day "I'm down with the struggle" smugness and poser irony makes me want to puke. The "wigger" appropriation of black perspective is fake and arrogant and just plain weird. You rip it exactly the way it deserves to be ripped. Unfortunately, it's likely the website will only continue on with its schtick as well as its money-making. -
Posted By:
growth12 at 03/24/2008 9:42:19 PM
Comment:
I'm a black woman who grew up with a white mother and a white stepfather in various "progressive" communities around the country. I thought SWPL was right on. I seriously think it was meant to lampoon narcissistic boomers and their progeny--nothing more. It was a faux-anthropological look at the way "down" white folks live and seemed to be a dig at prog whites who think they have their finger on everything, be it the environment (which they helped to destroy), the ways of black folk, etc. I also thought SBPL was hilarious, since I was in my 20s and 30s during the height of black bourgie-dom (I remember being amazed at how "into" going to brunch my bourgie friends were--it was trippy). Not to say that Gary didn't make some good points, but I think the delivery was a bit OTT. Having said that, it's hard writing on deadline and sometimes the muse misfires. Also, I love satire, so I may have cut both lists too much slack. And of course the white boy will make tons of money from SWPL--"down" white people got money and, remember, are incredibly narcissistic. -
Posted By:
malcolmkass at 03/24/2008 3:06:47 PM
Comment:
If you can't laugh at SWPL, then, you cannot laugh. All he does is point out mass irrationality with the dominate culture. Does the "Apple" cult really make sense to anyone? Many food scientists consider most claims on the benefits of organic food to be fraudlent. God, or god, bless this guy. -
Posted By:
jovent at 03/24/2008 2:24:48 PM
Comment:
blacks are 12% of the population in reality it is just 2% of the blacks that commit 50% of the murders and a greater percentage of other crimes. Consider: black females - 6%. Blacks from zero yrs. to 12 yrs. and black males from 50-100 years commit an infinitesimal percentage of the crimes. Therefore we are left with two percent. If we eliminate crimes committed by this two percent from the U.S. statistics our country compares very favorably with all Western countries. Fact -- blacks kill 7 times more than whites kill. Fact -- blacks kill whites 20 times more than whites kill blacks. Fact -- blacks mug or commit group crime against whites 50 times more than whites commit against blacks. Fact -- blacks rape white women 2000 (yes 2000) times more than whites rape black women. In New York City, about 300 white women are raped by blacks every year BUT there has not been a black woman raped by a white male in anybody???s memory (going back over 20 yrs.) Consider: Al Sharpton had to go upstate New York to find a hoax and that was almost 20 years ago. (Source NYT 4/22/05)
According to the Bureau of Justice Statistics 2004 report (released May 2006), blacks commit 54 percent of the homicides in America even though they constitute only 12 percent of the population.
An individual black male is seven times more likely to commit murder than an individual white male. It so happens that black felons commit 43 percent of aggravated assaults, 66 percent of armed robberies, 27 percent of rapes and 85 percent of interracial crimes of violence, mainly against whites (this last figure from a Justice Department report 2003). However, it's not just in the United States. The greatest dicators in recent years have emerged in Africa. People like Idi Amin of Uganda, Hastings Kamuzu Banda in Malawi, Mobutu Sese Seko, in Zaire, self-anointed Emperor Bokassa of the Central African Republic, Mohammed Saidi Barre in Somalia, Sani Abacha of Nigeria, Robert Mugabe in Zimbabwe -- the list is endless.
Blacks are dumber as well, statistics analyzed by the New York Times (July 4, 1999) dispel the poverty argument by establishing that impoverished white children whose parents earn less than $10,000 a year score higher on standardized SAT tests than black children whose parents earn more than $70,000 a year. Also, nearly 70 percent of black children are born out of wedlock. -
Posted By:
knows2much at 03/24/2008 1:14:59 AM
Comment:
Do you get paid by the word, because this was too long by about half. By the end I was just saying, "What?" -
Posted By:
Lucky B at 03/23/2008 12:21:05 PM
Comment:
Saramegan.
What are white people proud of? -
Posted By:
RWilliams at 03/23/2008 12:58:26 AM
Comment:
Sorry, Gary, but it's a white thing. You wouldn't understand. -
Posted By:
malarcon at 03/22/2008 9:00:38 PM
Comment:
it should really be called "Stuff White Yuppie Latte Liberals Like," am I right? -
Posted By:
kimbo2612 at 03/22/2008 7:05:53 PM
Comment:
How about:
http://stuffwhiteparentslike.wordpress.com/ -
Posted By:
chaselton at 03/22/2008 5:08:35 PM
Comment:
I don't like this blog because it takes me right back to when I was a teenager living in an upper-middle class suburb. Most of the white kids I at my mostly white high school that I knew enough to talk to, would hang around me but would pay attention only when it reflected well on them.
Their parents were worse: My mother can recount how white women who would chat with her at A Better Chance events, at which they were the minority among African-American and Latino students, would completely ignore her if she happened to run into them at the grocery store and they were out with their white friends.
It was insulting and degrading then, and is insulting and degrading now. -
Posted By:
aliveandknowsit at 03/22/2008 7:48:13 AM
Comment:
Touche. Excellent analysis. I do think that Martin Mull did it far better, years past, in his comedy documentary, "The History of White People in America." -
Posted By:
saramegan at 03/22/2008 7:38:41 AM
Comment:
Please stop making this racist. You have no idea what it is like to be a proud white woman - I cannot express my pride in being white (unlike any minority who are allowed to, or encouraged to express their racial pride,) or I am labeled "racist", or "neo-nazi", or "redneck", or "white supremest". People of color have safely made fun of whites for years and years, with out the same courtesy being offered to whites. LET US MAKE FUN OF SOMEONE!! -
Posted By:
saramegan at 03/22/2008 7:38:28 AM
Comment:
Please stop making this racist. You have no idea what it is like to be a proud white woman - I cannot express my pride in being white (unlike any minority who are allowed to, or encouraged to express their racial pride,) or I am labeled "racist", or "neo-nazi", or "redneck", or "white supremest". People of color have safely made fun of whites for years and years, with out the same courtesy being offered to whites. LET US MAKE FUN OF SOM -
Posted By:
saramegan at 03/22/2008 7:38:14 AM
Comment:
Please stop making this racist. You have no idea what it is like to be a proud white woman - I cannot express my pride in being white (unlike any minority who are allowed to, or encouraged to express their racial pride,) or I am labeled "racist", or "neo-nazi", or "redneck", or "white supremest". People of color have safely made fun of whites for years and years, with out the same courtesy being offered to whites. LET US MAKE FUN OF SOMEONE!! -
Posted By:
mcgeorge at 03/22/2008 1:37:56 AM
Comment:
If I understand correctly, Dauphin dislikes SWPL first, because other people found it funny and it became popular (and therefore, "monetized") and, second, the presupposition that Lander has presumptively spoken for White America with banalities that aren't really surgical enough. Well...FIRST that is player hating, and recognizing it as such before continuing to use it as criticism does not make the said hating any more relevant or pointed, but instead turns it into a pretty classic case of bad faith argument. SECOND, you don't need a candy-colored chart to see that Langer is talking about a pretty rarified breed of white people. Do you think I can go home to my all-white enclave in Indiana and have a discussion about SWPL with my friends after they get done with their shift at the mill? Langer's talking about Mac-white people, and while Langer doesn't have the specter of Nazism of mid-century colonialism to sharpen his satire to your preferred temperature, I can talk to you an Oscar party in Santa Monica next year and we can walk down the chart together, kay?
Justin -
Posted By:
rootcanal at 03/22/2008 1:27:16 AM
Comment:
I just LOVE how you are accusing whites of stealing black culture in an article surrounded by ads for Netflix and (but of course) The Wire. -
Posted By:
twobits at 03/22/2008 12:28:27 AM
Comment:
Great piece. Like the author, I was e-mailed the link to SWPL numerous times. I, too, found it highly irritating. I'm glad to read this piece and have my annoyance put into words (words that I can e-mail to all the people that subjected me to the site in the first place!). I agree with much of what Gary says and really enjoyed reading it. A valuable contribution! -
Posted By:
cancan at 03/21/2008 11:39:45 PM
Comment:
Good points about SWPL. It has been my experience that it is always easy for white people to make money whether they're doing something truly unique or derivative or tacky or whatever. The world is wired to think they're brilliant and they often feel entitled to getting recognition and getting paid. I, for one, ain't mad at them. I'm trying to figure out how to get some of the privilege, entitlement, and money myself. Privilege never gives itself up and I don't expect it to. -
Posted By:
aeqvitas at 03/21/2008 10:56:57 PM
Comment:
I agree with these comments thusfar, that SWPL does not speak for all white people. But I think that is what is so funny (and "insightful," as critics have said) about it. Obviously not all White People like Arrested Development, Dinner Parties, and Marijuana. I think what it's doing is showing that there are white "stereotypes" out there that are just as dumb, and happen to be entertaining to read at the same time. I had a friend in high school, who was black, but probably met more things on that list than I do. He was considered "white" by his peers, which is the same kind of racism as if I were to say all Black People listen to hip hop and wear baggy clothes. If nothing else, this blog just points out how stupid all stereotypes are (and how funny these specific ones can be) -
Posted By:
simpleknight at 03/21/2008 8:45:55 PM
Comment:
While I like SWPL for being funny, it has occurred to me more than once that it really doesn't describe me (white) or my father (also white) or any number of other white people. What it really describes are uptight, self indulgent people of every stripe. However, I believe that it points out something that is perhaps overlooked in your critique. Save for the clear delineation of what are clearly *liberal* whites (note how much they love gays and diversity, not a typical conservative value), there is much in the observations that is true of what is typically termed as "white" characteristics, although somewhat more sophisticated than "white people can't dance".
I do find the "player hating" more humorous, though. Yes, in eras past, it was the power of "white" culture that allowed such people to steal the ideas of others for profit. But one doesn't need to be white to do this, one merely needs to be in power.
The fact that this person has had the wherewithal to monetize these ideas should be at minimum tolerated. Too many people place too much value on "ideas". Ideas are meaningless if they don't have the backbone of *action* behind them. For example, I am a napkin inventor, and many of my ideas have come to fruition without their developers having once looked over my shoulder. Should I be angry with them? Sometimes I am, but it's unjustified, as I never *did* anything with them.
So while it's easy to give this fellow a hard time for doing what others haven't been able to, I remind you that art and creativity constantly build on previous works. Unless you can show that these entries were directly cribbed from specific other works, I'm afraid this is a bit of sour grapes. Hey, maybe that would be a good entry! #92, Sour Grapes. -
Posted By:
purpasty at 03/21/2008 8:05:58 PM
Comment:
After reading the list I think it is more a commentary on popular U.S. culture than a list of actual things "white" people have an affinity for. Also, seeing how caucasians make up the majority of the population the article is aptly titled "stuff white people like." And FYI I'm filipina. -
Posted By:
ppiddy at 03/21/2008 8:03:29 PM
Comment:
I'd love to say:
"Nothing gets under my (white, twentysomething) skin like the spectacle of a nearly-middle-aged black person doing what near-middle-aged black people do all the time, namely, use their race for self-promoting righteous indignation and quasi-intellectual 'deep thought'."
Problem is, I can't figure out when I could say that in a public forum and not come across as a complete dickwad. -
Posted By:
jenNYC at 03/21/2008 7:58:30 PM
Comment:
I think SWPL is HILARIOUS. White people like Slate, btw. -
Posted By:
IgnorantWhiteLiberal at 03/21/2008 7:58:27 PM
Comment:
I'm surprised they haven't come up with "Loving black (or at least, what's portrayed as black) music but being scared of black people." Now that's white! -
Posted By:
Chris L. at 03/21/2008 7:53:10 PM
Comment:
That's funny, i went to the site today and thought it would be funny if "Stuff White People Like" was an entry in their encyclopedia. The next entry could be "Making everything 'Meta'". -
Posted By:
sammysam at 03/21/2008 6:57:41 PM
Comment:
Wow, easy on the jealousy Gary, it makes you look like a bitter hack. Reeaallyyyy, you mean most things that become popular are not completely original, I???m shocked!!! But, the main thing that completely mystifies me, is you decrying the uncritical response to SWPL, and then failing to mention anywhere in your overly critical response that the blog speaks almost entirely about a specific cross-section of white people. I understand that this is a side issue of the argument you???re presenting, but it still absolutely HAS to be stated in any critical take on the SWPL blog. We are all limited in our understanding of other races and cultures, but if you believe that SWPL is significantly more about race then it is about class, I would recommend that then you expand your interactive communities to include a few lower-income Republicans.
Oh and yes, there are white people who throw and attend Oscar parties. -
Posted By:
saturndaniel at 03/21/2008 6:32:35 PM
Comment:
Ever since I was passed the link to SWPL, I was waiting for the inevitable backlash. Regardless, I remain a steadfast fan. I do admit that merely scanning the entry headlines makes the blog's "observations" appear banal (bottled water jokes being pretty stale), but reading the entries more thoroughly always reveals a few gems (for instance, in the gay friends entry: "Older white people prefer to be friends with gay parents because it enables their children to experience much needed diversity with people who are, for all intents and purposes, exactly the same as them."). In the end, I don't think the blog's author believes his observations to be particularly perceptive, or at least no more perceptive than any racial generalizing, black or white. The satirical value here is not so much in the lampooning of white culture, but more so in how the blog reveals the shakiness of any racial stereotyping, by constructing both obvious and transparent generalizations about the one group who has done more to stereotype on the basis of color yet has mostly avoided these generalizations themselves. That these stereotypes don't hold up to much scrutiny (of course not only white people like bottled water and not all have gay friends) is part of the point. -
Posted By:
jrichards at 03/21/2008 6:26:15 PM
Comment:
I read the headline expecting some perceptive critique of SWPL, but I have to admit I was disappointed by th time I got to the end. The author does a good job putting the site in historical context but fails to convince me that the blog's humor is flat.
One major reason for this is that he doesn't even seem to understand the basic premise for the site. The blog advises the reader several times to avoid cultural artifacts like by "the wrong kind of white people." The term "white people" in the blog's title is a clear stand-in for a certain kind of self-conscious, over-educated, pseudo-hipster that no one will really admit to being. In the blog's comments, a few black people who run in that sort of crowd state that they too see themselves profiled on the blog. (Certain qualities such as white guilt and lending authenticity to ethnic culture may not apply.)
The author's main argument against the site is the tired but true criticism about white people mining black culture for ideas. While it may be true that the blogger has a Filipino friend who helped spark the idea of one entry, I bet his humor is derived from many sources, white and colored alike. I know about the history of American music, and much of our cultural root system is sown by unappreciated black Americans, but can the blogger have a little credit, at least for the self-conscious bravery? I think that's why many people like the site, is for the "Ouch" that Dauphin mentions at the beginning. It's the kind of feeling you get while watching "Curb Your Enthusiasm."
Anyway, this article is thorough and well-composed. I just disagree with it. The author can't be expected to think something is funny if he doesn't, but did he read the "divorce" entry? -
Posted By:
tracker at 03/21/2008 6:20:59 PM
Comment:
The site seems to me to be poking fun at white-guilt liberals more than white people in general. -
Posted By:
saturndaniel at 03/21/2008 6:19:12 PM
Comment:
Ever since I was passed the link to SWPL, I was waiting for the inevitable backlash. Regardless, I remain a steadfast fan. I do admit that merely scanning the entry headlines makes the blog's "observations" appear banal (bottled water jokes being pretty stale), but reading the entries more thoroughly always reveals a few gems (for instance, in the gay friends entry: "Older white people prefer to be friends with gay parents because it enables their children to experience much needed diversity with people who are, for all intents and purposes, exactly the same as them."). In the end, I don't think the blog's author believes his observations to be particularly perceptive, or at least no more perceptive than any racial generalizing, black or white. The satirical value here is not so much in the lampooning of white culture, but more so in how the blog reveals the shakiness of any racial stereotyping, by constructing both obvious and transparent generalizations about the one group who has done more to stereotype on the basis of color yet has mostly avoided these generalizations themselves. That these stereotypes don't hold up to much scrutiny (of course not only white people like bottled water or have gay friends) is part of the point. -
Posted By:
texasteacher at 03/21/2008 6:08:06 PM
Comment:
Enter Your Comment
You forgot NASCAR! -
Posted By:
madprof4 at 03/21/2008 5:09:49 PM
Comment:
Explaining a joke never works but let me try to explain why I find the site funny. The gag works on two levels: as a satire of "Whiteness Studies" (if you haven't encountered this absurd field count yourself lucky) and as a lampoon of the universalist pretensions of a a certain upper middle class sensibility. Of course the site isn't about white people as a whole: the joke is about treating cultural pretension as sociological quirks. -
Posted By:
Theprofessional57 at 03/21/2008 4:52:30 PM
Comment:
It's interesting to me, that the worst African-American comedians can use "the white guy/Black guy" jokes as a crutch and be considered a good comedian. However when a white comedian talented or not, begins to approach the racial dividing line, it is meet with resistance. At some point it goes beyond humor, and hits back at the heart of the fundamental problem in this coutry...race relations. We have never dealt, honestly, with the divide of mistrust and anger between the black comunity and the white comunity in this country. Untill that time comes where we can have an open and honest dialogue between ourselves, websites like SWPL and racially charged jokes regardless if they were intended to be racially provacative or not, will just further divide us. Untill no one will be able to say anything, for fear of "upsetting" one particular individual or another. Free speech and Political correctness are mutually exclusive concepts.-
Posted By:
chaselton at 03/24/2008 4:20:39 PM
Comment:
"It's interesting to me, that the worst African-American comedians can use "the white guy/Black guy" jokes as a crutch and be considered a good comedian. However when a white comedian talented or not, begins to approach the racial dividing line, it is meet with resistance."
Your comment starts with two fallacies; you assume that the African-American comedian is considered good by everyone and anyone when he drags out the black guy/white guy joke, and that white comedians can't approach the dividing line of race without being met by resistance.
Both statements are untrue when applied to the entire population, white or black. Not every black person finds black guy/white guy jokes hilarious. Not every black person puts up resistance to white comedians addressing the topic of race. Overgeneralization blows the problem out of proportion.
-
-
Posted By:
sgaff at 03/21/2008 4:46:49 PM
Comment:
Calm down. The site's funny and more often than not the commentary is not worn out and banal but fairly accurate of the culture he tries to satarize. No, its not all white people, and yes, decry the author's use of a nonspecific nonwhite voice, but come on! Harmless fun, not an insidious website indicative of the overarching racial divides that threaten to rip the country apart. Which is what I would have guessed it to be, reading this article. -
Posted By:
Bed-Stuy White Boy at 03/21/2008 3:46:26 PM
Comment:
I have been a fond reader of The Root for only a couple months. After reading this article I can't but I can't help but wonder about a couple things in particular.
1) SWPL has been on The Root's blog roll since I began reading it. Why all the hubub about it now? I disovered it while perusing The Root's daily blog list and have known about since. Is it really that important/provocative a web site that it deserves editorial space?
2) Right above SWPL on the blog roll is Stuff Educated Black People Like. I have visited this site and the only difference between the two in tone and content are the people it profiles (educated black people) I assume we can expect another damnng review by Dauphin on how, like white people, educated black people now have a forum where they can "play on some or another aspect of their race for smug fun and profit."
In essence, both websites are practically identical. My perception of the two is that both are for educated, upper middle class people. One is aimed for the hipster bunch while the other for the neo soul crowd.
I invite anyone, especially Dauphin, to compare the two and discuss. -
Posted By:
judykins at 03/21/2008 2:29:07 PM
Comment:
The bottom line is .....All "male" chorus here....A lot of posturing by different colors is all...... -
Posted By:
trevinho at 03/21/2008 2:28:35 PM
Comment:
This article is way off base, as was a similarly silly article in The New Republic this week. The blog makes fun of yuppie culture (which, FYI, is not hipster culture as some clowns seem to think). It is not making fun of all white people. The blog itself actually makes that clear. It never pretends to be more than that, and this "analysis" just makes it clear that you don't get the joke. Either that or you are lacking a sense of humor.
Also, the "banal" observations on the blog are entertaining and fun, unlike your banal, pretentious reaction. If you really have a problem with the blog, don't write about it. It just attracts more attention to it. People just looking for an entertaining online distraction aren't interested in sitting around trying to create a definitive hierarchy of satire. Nor are they interested in starting a racial dialogue. It's just a joke, and a funny one at that. Get over it. -
Posted By:
Elmo at 03/21/2008 2:27:57 PM
Comment:
So what's the difference between this and "Stuff Educated Black People Like" on The Root site? Another "mockumentary" not to be taken too seriously and occasionally enjoyed. Keep it light. -
Posted By:
Elmo at 03/21/2008 2:25:02 PM
Comment:
So how is this different from "Stuff Educated Black People Like" on The Root site? Another mockumentary blog that shouldn't be taken too seriously but occasionally enjoyed. -
Posted By:
trevinho at 03/21/2008 2:21:58 PM
Comment:
This article is way off base, as was a similarly silly article in The New Republic this week. The blog makes fun of yuppie culture. It is not making fun of all white people. The blog itself actually makes that clear. It never pretends to be more than that, and this "analysis" just makes it clear that you don't get the joke. Either that or you are lacking a sense of humor.
Also, the "banal" observations on the blog are entertaining and fun, unlike your banal, pretentious reaction. If you really have a problem with the blog, don't write about it. It just attracts more attention to it. People just looking for an entertaining online distraction aren't interested in sitting around trying to create a definitive hierarchy of satire. Nor are they interested in starting a racial dialogue. It's just a joke, and a funny one at that. Get over it. -
Posted By:
chedd at 03/21/2008 2:08:05 PM
Comment:
Definitely agree with you on the SWPL - both boring and annoying. By "boring" I mean both un-funny and milquetoast, kind of like the "airplane food" joke or the Three's Company of slightly mean spirited humor web sites. And it doesn't help that it's written at about a junior high school level.
For much edgier, far funnier slightly mean spirited snark, I recommend both Dickipedia and HotChicksWithDouchebags. Dickipedia, as its name implies, takes apart celebrities who wear well the mantle "***." And HCWD is kind of self-explanatory, relying heavily on photos of DBs in uniform (much jewelry, hair products) and in their natural habitat (clubs, boats, the beach). Both much better written than SWPL, at times LOL funny. Check 'em out. -
Posted By:
calliope_8 at 03/21/2008 2:05:14 PM
Comment:
If I should attempt a stab at humor by generalizing an entire people, I might continue this list...
Stuff White People Like:
#91 Martha Stewart
#92 Polo
#93 Creating a Blog for Self Indulgence
#94 Having Non-White Friends and Advertising the Fact (Photo Proof a Must!)
#95 Eminent Domain
#96 Monotheism and Ensuing Religious Warfare
#97 Colonialism
#98 Political Correctness (to compensate for Colonialism)
#99 Evasion
I will leave the glorious #100 to Mr. Lander. -
Posted By:
chedd at 03/21/2008 2:01:05 PM
Comment:
Gotta agree with you on the SWPL- both annoying and boring. By "boring," I mean equal parts unfunny and milquetoast, kinda like the "what's up with that airplane food, huh?" or Three's Company of slightly mean spirited humor sites. Okay concept, just okay execution.
For slightly nastier, much funnier snark, I recommend "dickipedia" and "hot chicks with douchebags," both of which are LOL funny and very well written.
Dickipedia, as it's name suggests, takes apart celebrities who have earned the mantle "***." HCWD is kind of self-explanatory, and relies heavily on photos which prove the point, in much the same manner as Hot Ghetto Mess. Check 'em out. -
Posted By:
mt at 03/21/2008 1:58:35 PM
Comment:
First thing first -- as someone who appears on the site Black People Love Us (girl with Penn State hat), I agree that the site is far superior to Stuff White People Like. Hands down.
This blog entry makes an excellent argument against SWPL, most of it with which I agree. But I think we???re all missing the (sad but true) humor. Dauphin makes an excellent insight when he notes that the very appropriation of things as ???white??? is what makes this site somewhat appalling. The blogger in SWPL is very sensitive to this erasure of ???the other??? (re: his conversation with his Filipino friend) so he makes an utterly ridiculous show this erasure; the real humor is in how stupid it is to appropriate the preference of these things as ???exclusively white.??? It becomes the big meta-joke, one at which I am laughing.
Maybe I???m giving SWPL too much credit, but this was my immediate read. -
Posted By:
stevenb07 at 03/21/2008 1:35:48 PM
Comment:
You definitely ruined StuffWhitePeopleLike for me. Now I can so easily see all the things you discussed, and it's just not funny anymore. I guess I should be thankful. Thanks...I guess. -
Posted By:
mt at 03/21/2008 1:34:33 PM
Comment:
First thing first -- as someone who appears on the site Black People Love Us (girl with Penn State hat), I agree that the site is far superior to Stuff White People Like. Hands down.
This blog entry makes an excellent argument against SWPL, most of it with which I agree. But I think we???re all missing the (sad but true) humor. Dauphin makes an excellent insight when he notes that the very appropriation of things as ???white??? is what makes this site somewhat appalling. The blogger in SWPL is very sensitive to this erasure of ???the other??? (re: his conversation with his Filipino friend) so he makes an utterly ridiculous show this erasure; the real humor is in how stupid it is to appropriate the preference of these things as ???exclusively white.??? It becomes the big meta-joke, one at which I am laughing.
Maybe I???m giving SWPL too much credit, but this was my immediate read. -
Posted By:
Evolutionary at 03/21/2008 1:31:45 PM
Comment:
Hey, but it's a member of the rare "blogs that are members of the class of things they themselves describe" - white people like Things White People Like.
I thought a few of them were well written. The T-shirt thing, that was funny, like a mid-level Onion story without the swearing. And a couple others I thought were ok. But it's a one-note song and I quickly bored of it. Gary, FWIW, this site has already passed its moment and is well into the passe phase of the blog-hipness lifecycle.
I liked the backlinks in this article, Race Traitor and that. interesting. -
Posted By:
nml at 03/21/2008 1:09:31 PM
Comment:
You people are all lame. Including the writer of this piece. Get a life, will you? You have way too much time on your hands if you are seriously dissecting this silly blog. -
Posted By:
whith at 03/21/2008 1:08:02 PM
Comment:
Actually, I think it's funny. That's all it is. It should be called something else, however. Maybe "Whatwhitemiddleclassnortheasterngradstudentslike" would be more precise. I read it, see myself, feel horror, but also feel kind of self-congratulatory too--that's the icky part. Then I beat myself up for being such a product of my environment and lower-middle-brow US culture. Then I get over it. You should too. REALLY want to read the Lipp book. Thanks for the tip! -
Posted By:
ptopolski at 03/21/2008 1:02:52 PM
Comment:
wow talk about wasting too much time and analysis on a bad joke. -
Posted By:
WhiteGeezer at 03/21/2008 12:08:52 PM
Comment:
I have to confess that I assumed that SWPL was the work of a young black guy who created it for the amusement of his fellow blacks. Now that I know it comes from a white kid it makes sense. I was struck by extent it could be copied by whites for their own use. An Ann Coulter style "conservative" could substitute "liberal" for "white people". A Jeff Foxworthy type could substitute "yuppie" for "white people".
As far as playing on his race for fun and profit, at least he's targeting his own race and demographic, not profiting at the expense of another race. In fact, isn't using your own background for material pretty much the foundation of most humor? -
Posted By:
rousseau at 03/21/2008 12:07:06 PM
Comment:
Two things:
1. I just read your whole piece, and I still don't understand why you don't like it.
2. The SWPL guy didn't grow up in "Toronto's Chinatown." Toronto has seven Chinatowns. He grew up in "Chinatown East." -
Posted By:
AntyJohn at 03/21/2008 12:06:40 PM
Comment:
I think that a common theme underpinning many of the blog entries is how disingenuous white people are in their tastes. This is evidenced by their need to search for something authentic because they feel deprived of culture in a country that lacks a cohesive identity. Many of the entries really reflect a subgroup of white friends that I have and to be honest I can also identify with a lot of them, so initially while it was humorous eventually it nauseated me. -
Posted By:
rousseau at 03/21/2008 11:40:21 AM
Comment:
Two things:
1. I just read your whole piece, and I still don't understand why you don't like it.
2. The SWPL guy didn't grow up in "Toronto's Chinatown," because Toronto has seven Chinatowns. It's the most Chinese city outside of Asia. He grew up in "Chinatown East." -
Posted By:
ThatemW at 03/21/2008 11:39:06 AM
Comment:
I do like SWPL. I also think it is fairly benevolent and funny, this article is all unnecessary analysis on a joke.
In addition, jokes pretty much need to make fun of someone and everyone is too sensitive (e.g. Geico/Cavemen), so if Lander can't make fun of himself essentially, what am I supposed to laugh at?
Finally, there is a good point in the article about how Lander assumes white equals upper middle class, liberal, etc....which I happen to be, that is ironic and funny. -
Posted By:
brienne at 03/21/2008 11:35:47 AM
Comment:
I don't see the problem with it, the tribute to expensive sandwiches made me laugh. Lighten up folks!
Apparently, "internet=serious business" is true. -
Posted By:
brienne at 03/21/2008 11:31:21 AM
Comment:
I like it. It's cute. Lighten up.
Apparently, as they say, Internet=Serious Business -
Posted By:
DrZhivago at 03/21/2008 11:31:11 AM
Comment:
I had the uncomfortable feeling that this site was racist the first time I was linked to it from another site but this twaddle pretty much confirms it.
The author of this facile pap takes time out of a pointless article, attacking some nonentity for taking advantage of popular culture's (not just white culture's) unending need for safe, unoriginal pre-packaged spoonfed nonsense apparently for the sole reason that the 'creator' of SWPL is white and he is black.
In the middle of his rant about one of MANY inane internet websites-if it were the only one of the many examples of our country's race to the lowest common denominator or even the only one to traffic in the easily targeted territory of the dominant culture perhaps he wouldn't seem so obviously bitter about some white kid's apparent easy access to success. But to specifically laud Race Traitor magazine's motto, "treason to whiteness is loyalty to humanity" as "...the most bitchin' ever..." is perhaps too much. Unless most bitchin actually means most hateful or most disgraceful.
The psuedo-intellectual nonsense found there was, I thought, reserved for white power sites. Obviously not. Why IS it O.K. to be a black racist but not a white one? If anyone believes that the sort of hypocrisy evident on that site will achieve social justice and equality or is 'irony' as the author suggests, well good luck with that but I respectfully decline the invitation to share in your delusions.
By the way, I think that SWPL is idiotic and not even remotely creative or original but if you don't like it-have an ounce of intellectual self-respect-don't go to that site. But I suppose that Gary Dauphin thinks that he is interactively building communities, whatever that means. Pligger nease, you're a hack. Period.-
Posted By:
99centspecial at 03/21/2008 11:46:12 PM
Comment:
It's not that Race Traitor and the author of this article about SWPL is saying "death to white people," but rather, "death to whiteness," aka the system of privilege based on race. while the lines are fine between what constitutes getting rid of a race 's (and society's) behaviors and getting rid of a race, that is the distinction between being a racist and a certain brand of social justice.-
Posted By:
DrZhivago at 03/23/2008 9:38:36 AM
Comment:
Thanks, I appreciate your reply. However, I am going to have to respectfully disagree. No, the author is not saying 'death to white people' but his article, like many others and some of the replies to this one repeat the same old nonsense that boils down to: whenever white people borrow from culture it is theft, unworthy or just 'whitey' using the system and yet these same people are strangely quiet and never seem to have anything to say about the many examples of people of color borrowing, sometimes lifting word-for-word, from other, earlier creative works. Amy Winehouse borrows from 60s black girl groups and earlier jazz singers such as Sarah Vaughan and she's a horrible person, yet noone cares to mention that early jazz artists owe a debt to even earlier artists such as Gershwin. This is simple racial bias-a passive racism. I am not saying that the author actively supports racism but it is obvious that he is biased. (And if one more middle-aged black man calls a young white man white boy...It may not be racist but it is very rude and disrespectful.) It is odd that some people seem to believe that they are not guilty of prejudiced thinking because they have been the victim of it themselves. As if that gives them carte blanche to behave in any way that they like. Hypocrites! As to Race Traitor, I would say that they are not so much racist as they are simply misguided but that does not excuse using divisive, racially-charged language. The facile notion that white people are benefitting from a 'system of privilege' is racist. The belief-without the burden of inconvenient facts-that a group is something or has something solely because of their membership in that group is prejudiced, in this case racist. Believe what you like. You can say that the proof is all around me but I prefer a more stringent scientific process for my crackpot conspiracy theories. I would imagine that the nonslave-owning poor white men who came home from the Civil War missing a limb were wondering when their special status would kick in. It is a fine line that you and Race Traitor draw between being a racist and social justice. "It's not that I want to exterminate the Jews, I just feel that they have unfair, unearned privileges." Adolf Hitler, Munich, Germany, circa 1932. "I'm not against blacks in my neighborhood, just the 'bad' ones-and I should be allowed to decide who is a 'good' one, by the way." Sorry, but I am not interested in you or anyone else 'helping' me define my own ethnicity, or in the case of Race Traitor telling me that I am not entitled to it, thanks.
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Posted By:
mwuagi at 03/21/2008 11:23:27 AM
Comment:
Personally, "SWPL" isn't my cup of tea either... But that really doesn't matter. The site will continue on, regardless of those of us who don't like it. By the looks of the comments sections on that site, there are plenty of people who DO like the site, thereby providing the site with all the fuel it needs to flourish.
I really don't think that the site's author gives a s**t whether we are fans or not... So let's not get our blood pressure up about it. Gary Dauphin has made his point??? -
Posted By:
DrZhivago at 03/21/2008 11:00:07 AM
Comment:
l -
Posted By:
Black Thought 08 at 03/21/2008 10:45:04 AM
Comment:
I think the site is entertaining. Every discussion about race doesn't have to be a serious editorial. It's the writer's personal view of whiteness from his perspective growing up. Some white people will agree and some won't since he obviously can't write for all white people. If a lot of blacks do the same thing as liberal white yuppies then so what, he didn't say these activities were only for whites but just what they(white people) like. From reading several posts it usually objects or activities that say something about their themselves. Some of you people need to remember your sense of humor! Come on lighten up people : ^) -
Posted By:
Dirk Gently at 03/21/2008 10:14:40 AM
Comment:
I think pretty much everyone misses the brilliance, and poignancy, of the satire, possibly including Landers himself. Yes, the observations are sometimes banal, yes, the humor is not quite as well-crafted as it probably should be, etc. etc. All good points. But it doesn't trade on "whiteness" as skin color per se: it trades on a specific kind of white privilege. Notice there is nothing on there about NASCAR, for instance. This is stuff that upper middle class, milquetoast Democrats in their 20's and 30's like, and for the purposes of establishing power and consumer trends in our society, of what "everyone" aspires to, this is a list of things THEY like. "Whiteness" is therefore coded as being much more, and much less, than skin color, and is instead about a particular taste culture that for the moment is the hegemonic form of "success" in this country. This is borne out in the mode of address: advice to someone who isn't white on how they can move in white circles and take advantage of white people.
So, this is not just a means of making fun of whiteness--it's about exposing the normativity of this kind of taste culture, and how it's not actually normative at all, and is based instead on incredible socio-economic power (which may or may not be "earned" so much as granted to those with the right connections and/or skin color). It also exposes the politics of such so-called liberals for what it is: being mostly vain and unthinkingly consumerist. To these ends, the site is brilliant and valuable. Too bad hardly anybody gets it. -
Posted By:
mtlin at 03/21/2008 9:59:47 AM
Comment:
This article is almost as stupid as SWPL. "Does every discussion about identity have to be about colored folks? No, of course not. Talk amongst yourselves, white folks, really. By all means." One of the more obnoxious lines I've read in a while. -
Posted By:
BR at 03/21/2008 9:58:37 AM
Comment:
How is Hot Ghetto Mess ANYTHING like SWPL?
Hot Ghetto Mess is a bunch of pictures with some message that "we have to do better," whereas SWPL draw is its writing.
Its just like people who say that black people invented rock-n-roll because they invented jazz. Please! -
Posted By:
mtlin at 03/21/2008 9:58:16 AM
Comment:
This article is almost is stupid as SWPL. "Talk amongst yourselves, white folks, really. By all means." One of the more obnoxious lines I've read in a while. -
Posted By:
Osustu at 03/21/2008 9:54:40 AM
Comment:
Bricology, thanks for some commentary that actually made me laugh. Some of Dauphin's entries are nonsense. Take as an example #78 Multilingual Children. "As white people age, they start to feel more and more angry with their parents for raising them in a monolingual home." You know it never occurred to me what terrible parents I had until just now. In my experience, non-whites are at least as likely to be multi-lingual as whites. I did get a few chuckles from the site. However, in those entries that I did think were applicable, the writer is overconfident in his assessments. By the way, I hate Sarah Silverman...and the Wire was a great show. -
Posted By:
brstevens at 03/21/2008 9:50:07 AM
Comment:
If I remember correctly, black people accepted Bill Clinton as one of their own and welcomed him as such when he opened his office in Harlem when he left the White House. To lay that characterization of him, and any racial humor not created by people other than whites as at least vaguely racist, is extremely unfair. It's gotten to where white people can't even make fun of themselves without someone of another race getting offended and that's ridiculous. I think this article should have ended right after the author confessed to player hating. -
Posted By:
PGofHSM at 03/21/2008 9:49:09 AM
Comment:
Maybe because I am middle-upper class and well-educated without being white, I found SWPL fairly accurate about most of the people with whom I spend time, without being nearly as accurate about me. There are a lot of things that are just much more true about white bobos than about their counterparts of color, something I think the site Stuff Educated Black People Like highlights. (What white people still identify by their fraternity or sorority years after graduation from college?)
bricology declares that effectively ALL people like dinner parties, dogs and wine, but this just isn't true. My parents are educated and have an upper class income, but having grown up in a different country, they do not share these tastes. To them, a party involves dozens of people with their kids and a buffet line; dogs are critters that belong outside, preferably to other people; and no wine is worth paying what you'd pay for Johnny Walker. When going into an educated-white-people environment -- say, being invited to a colleague's home for a dinner party, or going to a nice American restaurant -- they will politely sample Stuff White People Like, but these are not and probably never will become their own tastes. -
Posted By:
brstevens at 03/21/2008 9:46:07 AM
Comment:
If I remember correctly, black people accepted Bill Clinton as one of their own and welcomed him as such when he moved his office to Harlem when he left the White House. To lay that on the feet of white people, and to characterize any racial humor that isn't created by blacks as at least vaguely racist, is extremely unfair. Now white people can't even make fun of themselves without offending someone of color. I think this article should have ended right after the author fessed up to player hating. -
Posted By:
marcuscan at 03/21/2008 9:33:21 AM
Comment:
WOW! Can it be that science need not be applied to every single product. Its been done before? Who wouldn't assume as much?!? How much in the realm of comedy is brand new? It generalizes? Again, who would of ever guessed? Our comedy, (yes, i'm a blk guy who likes the site), is forever mired in the "wht ppl do this, blk ppl do this" bane. Has anyone here ever laughed at R. Pryor, E. Murphy, M. Lawernce, etc? What, now you're appauled that some wht dude has done the same? -
Posted By:
lisalisa at 03/21/2008 9:31:38 AM
Comment:
Don't worry, Gary: this too shall pass. I agree about it being a typical white-boy-gets-rich-by-going-thumbnail-deep thing. This is America: what does one expect? Moving on.
I have two words for everyone: TIM WISE.
Read the man. -
Posted By:
bilbyjg at 03/21/2008 9:23:39 AM
Comment:
Just a few notes...
Everybody seems to have noticed that the voice of SWPL is pretty exclusive, i.e. it caters to college graduates. Many of the "unreconstructed" white people that the site's Toronto-based author would shudder to meet would probably have grounds to argue with a lot of his conclusions. And the site also becomes an unfortunate vehicle for people who aren't "in on" the joke, meaning that some white folks take it as a proclamation of white superiority because we like wine and dinner parties. And The Wire. God, that list really hits home.
Anyway, Dauphin made some interesting points about white people assuming everything but the burden of black identity - if we do that, then isn't that a way of saying "Hey, racism is over, quit complaining?" Absorbing bits and pieces of black identity into the mainstream IS a process of assimilation that we would not have seen 50 years ago. However, it also has the potential to drive real race issues underground. -