Stuff White People Like book

It's pretty good, worth picking up or browsing through if you've got time at the bookstore. Most of the new entries, as with the existing ones on the website, focus on cultural snobbery, but there are quite a few on touchier topics that really stand out. "Adopting foreign children," for example, begins with the greatest one-liner in the whole book, and the ones on "Having children in their late thirties" and "The ACLU" likewise show that their preferences aren't just silly fads, but can have real consequences.

Unlike the website, the book treats male-female relationships at some length, probably because an editor knew this would sell more copies. From "Platonic friendships":

When you see a white woman and a white man eating dinner together, watching a movie, or drinking at a bar you probably think they are a couple. Not so fast! White people often engage in something called a "platonic friendship." These arrangements feature a white male who is in love with a white female who needs companionship or access to someone with a car.

When the website first became popular, I wrote an apology for Whiterpeople, pointing out that a lot of the things they like really are better than the rest, like New York City, living by the water, or hardwood floors. Now that I've read a more extensive catalog of their preferences, though, it's hard to escape the conclusion that they just got lucky in these cases. If you appropriate 1000 things to fashion your identity, by chance alone you'll pick a few nice things.

But most of what gets Whiterpeople off turns out to be pretty dopey: indie rock, David Sedaris, Sarah Silverman, The Daily Show, Barack Obama, shorts, New Balance shoes, beards with glasses, and acoustic covers of pop or hip-hop songs. The new entry on DJs shows just how moronic their idol-worshiping really is. ("Note: DJs have the best talent-to-groupie ratio of any career.") Even the good things that they like they either inherit culturally or pay attention to out of a sense of guilt; it's what they do when no one's looking that matters.

Sure, their hit-rate is likely a tad higher than that of a randomly chosen group of people, but given how much they preen, you'd think they spoke four foreign languages, went to the ballet regularly, or could professionally play an instrument, and had acquired enough facts to have an informed opinion on anything other than indie rock and when The Simpsons reached its peak. The core trait of Whiterpeople culture is that which defines their beloved Web 2.0 -- every lazy retard gets a megaphone.

Still, as much as interacting with one of them may make you want to choke the life from their body, it is not very difficult to shut them up. If they begin to probe your appreciation of the Magnetic Fields, apologize for your ignorance by mentioning that you prefer classical music and casually ask them who their favorite composer is. When they attempt to brag about hobo-ing their way through Europe, tell the story of how you lived and worked abroad (or even in a different, enviable American city) for months or years.

Deep down, they are aware that Bach easily beats DJ Floorhumper, and that it takes greater effort and produces more lasting satisfaction to absorb the life of a different city over the long-term than to fumble your way through "Where can I buy some hash?" in 15 languages while backpacking with a bunch of smelly Australians. The group that SWPL calls "the wrong kind of white people" might not mind admitting that they're going nowhere, but underneath the ironic and sarcastic humor, Whiterpeople are embarrassed to concede out loud that they've pretty much fucked up so far in life.

My suggestion for avoiding their nonsense is to associate with old fogies, who are past the status competition for the most part, and with high school and college students, who are too young to have entered the soul-sucking culture of hip 20- and 30-somethings. "Associating with" could be as simple as tutoring high schoolers or college kids. Their youthful vim and vigor is quite refreshing after having some 27 year-old talk your ear off about their organic-holistic herpes medicine. If you're not too old, you can even befriend and date them, but that's a topic for another post.