July 10, 2008

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.

7 comments:

  1. Whiterpeople have better taste than average people because of their snobbery. As Michael Blowhard notes nobbery has its uses. In America, the alternative is not Bach and ballet, it is Branson, Missouri and Playstation.

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  2. I said they had better taste than a randomly chosen group, but that their preening is entirely out of proportion to what they can back it up with, to put it lightly.

    Plus, besting someone who's poor or stupid isn't really an accomplishment the way they think it is. They get that in virtue of the genes and environment they were given. I'm more interested in how much they're fulfilling their potential. In that regard, they're pretty pathetic.

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  3. That organic herpes medicine works wonders, though. Don't hate.

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  4. Plus, besting someone who's poor or stupid isn't really an accomplishment the way they think it is. They get that in virtue of the genes and environment they were given. I'm more interested in how much they're fulfilling their potential.

    That's a crucial point. How many times have you heard a whiterperson in his 20s assert that recreational drug use is innocuous or even beneficial because he's been using them since he was 16 and now he makes $60k a year?

    It'd be more appropriate to compare whiterpeople with those who delight in reading SWPL (as opposed to the masses of people who wouldn't even realize "white people" are green leftist hipsters, not just Euro-descended) but have tastes that are less shallow, more pragmatic, and more edifying. Like those who read Dusk in Autumn! ... Guess I've got a little whiter in me (self importance).

    I finished it this morning, and had that first line on adopting foreign cultures, er, kids, annotated as my second favorite in the book. My vote for the best comes from "Avoiding confrontation":

    "White people really do hate a significant portion of the population, yet for some reason they are petrified of doing anything that might make someone hate them back."

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  5. "Adopting foreign children," for example, begins with the greatest one-liner in the whole book

    I plan to read it the next time I go to a bookstore, but just out of curiosity, what is it?

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  6. OK, but SPOILER ALERT, as they say.

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    "Much as white people tend to prefer rescue dogs over purebreds, when it comes to children an increasing number of white people are turning to foreign countries."

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  7. "Whiterpeople have better taste than average people because of their snobbery. As Michael Blowhard notes nobbery has its uses. In America, the alternative is not Bach and ballet, it is Branson, Missouri and Playstation."

    You realize video games are on the verge of taking off as a very serious art form, and all the wrong people are saying all the right things about them, no?

    Start with Socrates, ripping the stage play with actors replacing the lone narrator of the Homeric epic, and calling it: (1) too violent, (2) too sexual, (3) too close to reality for patrons to discern the difference, and (4) a distraction that people will waste away their lives at.

    Repeat these same gripes throughout history with the introduction of:

    -The serial novel
    -Radio
    -Film
    -Television

    Then think back to how the chattering, academic classes viewed film in its infancy. Nice for looking at the gate of a horse and other trivial pursuits, a gimmicky technological distraction, but film was certainly no art form.

    Then couple this with the fact that the later generations struggle to play video games, and a fair assessment isn't anything I'm holding my breath for.

    But, video games are making money now. Lots of money. And with money follows an influx of talent. There are serous soundtracks composed, very intelligent sound design, and some wonderful visuals created. I think back to some of the great painters whose portraits of patrons are held up as high art for the breakthroughs in perspective or technique when the subject matter itself is bland (a rich guy paid for his picture) and wonder why breakthroughs in perspective or technique in the visual realm of the video game are written of so easily.

    Factor in that this is a truly interactive art form and the possibilities get very exciting, in my opinion. Pong came out in 1972. Think how far the medium has come in just 36 years.

    Of course, there is bad television, just like there are insipid plays, dreck films, derivative and predictable novels, etc. But there are also great films, books, performances, and yes, video games as well. The audience/market for video games is now getting large enough where niches can be addressed. The art house video game isn't far off.

    I don't expect to convince anyone over 40. But as the video game industry now grosses more than the film industry, we really just need to wait for you folks to die off and for the next generation of academic tastemakers to assume their vacated chairs. The creative talent necessary for video games to take off is already nearing critical mass.

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