I do like me some expensive sandwiches, it's true.
funny, we do not refer to white people as whites, we call them 'yellow' referring to blonde hair i guess and it does not have any derogatory meaning, just you know different hair
For instance the median age of divorce for white men is 30.5 and 29 for women.
Isn't the median age of marriage ~25 and ~28?
3- Do all your white people have blonde hair?
4- Starter marriages?
not all of course, but certainly of lighter colour than black hair, so the definition is 'yellow head' - shar tolgoit, to be exact
Got as far as natural medicine, and breathed a sigh of relief. I hate that shit.
Have they already done NPR?
Slightly broader, #44 - Public Radio.
Sort of.
I'm close enough (aspirationally, mostly) to this to cringe a tiny bit, but *none* of the very white white people I work with would see much of themselves in that list. In fact, the white people at work would be pretty suspicious of anyone who matched more than 40% of those cultural markers. And these are urban/suburban, mostly-educated, middle-class-and-rising white Germano-Scando-Irish Minnesotans. How much whiter can you get than that?
The website is really about white people who embody the rootless cosmopolitan ideal.
The website is really about white people who embody the rootless cosmopolitan ideal.
Well, obviously. See, for instance, the comment that the wrong kind of white people like Dane Cook.
90% of the (white) authors of personals ads in my age group on craigslist and nerve would presumably see themselves in this site.
There's an odd bit on the blog where the opposition to 'white people' is 'poor people'. I wonder who the people writing it are.
12 is right. Obviously, "white" doesn't mean "white" here, but it's funnier that way. "White" means the 20-, 30- and maybe 40-something urban/coastal professional class.
"White" means the 20-, 30- and maybe 40-something urban/coastal professional class.
I.e., us.
It's almost guaranteed that if some Columbian drug lord can start offering "organic" cocaine, he'll be the richest guy ever.
Bwahahahahahaha. This whole site is awesome. I conclude that it is written by a graduate student.
16: a graduate student who reads Crooked Timber:
Perhaps after many years people's attitudes would change to the extent that you might get offered organically produced cocaine sourced to various micro-climates in Bolivia on entering a fancy bar. That would be...not terrible.
From reading the coffee post, particularly as it addresses drinking coffee as a child/teen, I conclude that the writer's sense of 'non-white' is not strongly shaped by Dominicans. Sally drinks some coffee at eight, but it's all about peer pressure from her school friends -- most of her friends have been drinking coffee for a while. (I feel vaguely disconcerted by this, but she likes it and I can't see what harm it could do, so I let her.)
Almost everyone I know is really into at least one of the things I saw listed on the front page. The more I read the more I feel an almost overwhelming desire to weep hot, purgative tears.
Hot, purgative tears will be the next entry.
Another hallmark of white people that would fit well on that page is that they are embarrassed to find out that they have distinctive features in common.
It's true, it's true. We're so lame.
Umm. I don't care for sushi. I haven't been divorced. Although I make an occasional exception (present company, and all that), I'm not terribly fond of lawyers. I drive a (12-year old) Jaguar. What colour am I?
The colour of someone who can't read comment 12, I think.
24: And here I was thinking my Simpsons quote had really touched you.
It's true, it's true. We're so lame.
This was my reaction as well.
I look forward to the entry on lap swimming.
Is there an entry on using British slang? I say this as someone who has used both "BOFF" and "TOSH" in Scrabulous over the last two days.
what i recalled reading the vintage post
so there was again a tv show in Japan that discussed a letter from a female viewer
she was asking a question how to handle a difficult situation with her boyfriend being on the verge of break-up
he had vintage jeans from 1950ies which was although very expensive, very dirty too, filth of 50 yrs! of his wearing and somebody else's before him, so she couldn't stand it and did a laundry thus ruining its vintage cost
the verdict was do not wash your boyfriend's vintage jeans
31,32:
read -> Returns a cryptic free verse poem illustrating a Central Asian perspective on some aspect of popular culture.
read -a -> 'read' without Central Asian specificity.
33: That is to be expected given #58 - Japan.
33 thanks for the CD, beautiful music, i like it
just may i note that white people on that blog totally usurp many things i like too
i tried to be a vegetarian, for example, because i was doing experiments at work and just couldn't stand to look at something meaty, thank gods now work on cell cultures only
and the meat in Japan has some different flavour which i can't eat too, so out of necessity became a vegetarian and liked it! with some sad health consequences though
LB made me wonder: what number is "being down with the gente."
That blog is sort of idiotic. Oh, snap, says the straw man, that's because you see yourself in it. No, I say, that's not why.
Ben speaks the truth about the personals population.
Despite my class aspirations, I think I'm culturally still too "white ethnic" or "working class." Too much of an autodidact in some areas, impatient in others.
Whenever I need to buy wine, I always get the same kind of Chilean wine that one of my ex-girlfriends took a half hour to pick out. I'm not going to tell what it is, because I don't want anyone to steal it.
#68!! Support your local divorce lawyer!!!
I think that blog is idiotic, see myself in it, but don't think I think it's idiotic because I see myself in it.
1) There's actually something a little fucked about equating white with Stereotypical Rootless Cosmopolitan, not just because some white people are not SRCs, but also because some SRC's aren't white. It disappears non-whites from (one segment of) the middle class.
2) There's something additionally fucked about the attitude that since "white" is the opposite of "poor" and "white" = superior left winger that "poor" must mean right wing.
3) Oh, look. You can catalog people by their political views and consumer tastes. This is news? Not everything has to be news, I guess, but if it's not news it should perhaps be funny. You could do that with any group, and it would either come off racist or as the sort of faux reverential exoticizing of the supposed salt of the earth that David Brooks specializes in. In fact, that blog is one half of a David Brooks column, complete with the attitude that those decadent coastal elites are shallow and empty in their aspirations, and the invitation to punish oneself for liking yoga or sushi or biking or kitchen appliances.*
*all of which are fantastic elements of life. Spare time and material comforts are fanfuckingtastic if you ask me.
Excepting Public Radio and Indie Rock, maybe, I love most of the things White People Like. And why not? Bicycles, sandwiches, sushi, Apple products, and the pursuit of an authentic life lived vicariously through the poor and alien are all very good things, says I.
(My significant other just asked me whether I wanted to pick from the 15 varieties of tea we had on offer, or whether I would prefer to have my tea chosen for me.)
the invitation to punish oneself for liking yoga or sushi or biking or kitchen appliances.
Yeah, the blog writer is probably just full of stupid white guilt.
40: Thanks. In light of #41, what # is "Atrophied sense of humor"?
I like the web site. It's funny.
I read the blog as a sincere attempt to help non-whites get along with (a certain kind of) white people. Why this bashing of someone who's trying to promote cross-cultural understanding?
I thought it was very funny, that the reduction of 'white' to 'aspirational cosmopolitan young person' was intentional (because 'white' has arguably always really meant 'people suitably like us' rather than 'essential qualities based on color of skin and ethnic heritage'), and that the faux-anthropological aspect of it was the best part, especially on the things you should say around white people if you want to fit in. Help! I'm being surrounded! MY WINE IS FROM CHILE!
The more I read of this the less funny it became. I can't quite put my finger on why. I tried to imagine Chris Rock doing a version of some of the entries, and that seemed like it would be funny. Needs more anger and less easy condescension.
It seems a lot stupider than it is because it says "white people" instead of "yuppies" or equivalent. That's why it annoys me. Like #41.
47: I mean why not? we're all free, white and 21, right?
That is to say, there were thousands of things exactly like this written 20 years ago about "yuppies". Not a sign of progress towards equality that "white people" is the new word for "yuppies".
I read the blog as a sincere attempt to help non-whites get along with (a certain kind of) white people.
A sort of Guide Blanc as it were.
I'm kind of with Every(white)man. Reason (1) is part of what was bothering me. Actually, all of what E(w)m said was bothering me. I'd add that there's something screwy, in a way I'm not happy with, with racialising the difference between David Brooks' BoBos and everyone else -- if you're not a latte-sipping-co-ed-softball-playing recycler, you're not really white. And I'm not all that far off the lifestyle described, but I'm not close enough that I'm thinking, "It's funny because it's true!"
Oh, that crossed with a lot of stuff that was very sensible, and that probably would have made 54 different if I'd read them first.
We regularly drink wine from Argentinia. Does that count?
Oh my gawd. I hope this thread becomes entry #70.
Cala's right: it's "white" as defined by Friends fanfic. That's the conceit around which each entry is built, but I don't think you're supposed to read every entry in order to understand some larger message. It's like the "50 most loathsome" lists: some picks are funny, some are not, so you should focus on the funny ones.
Yep, the backlash has begun. Ogged, better take the whole post down before you get too embararssed.
"embararssed" s/b "Embraer-arsed"
OT:
Why didnt anyone tell me that Mr. Brooks was so good?
Maybe we can start ironically liking the site?
62: Are you talking about this site or the linked one?
Oh, it's funny, it's just a complicated enough joke that I really want to think through it for awhile to be sure I know exactly who's being made fun of and whether I'm comfortable making fun of them in that way.
63: Are you saying you have some sort of unironic interest in Unfogged? Silencio, old man.
this "white people" site gives me ideas. I could go for biking to the beach where I'll sit reading my book while enjoying a dinner of organic sushi and absent-mindidly throwing the frisbee from my dog.
64—jeez, lb, let your hair down once in a while.
I've liked Unfogged ironically all along -- way before it was cool to do so, may I add. (And I'm being ironic about caring about doing things before they were cool, too.)
I disliked "Things White People Like" before it was popular.
This post courtesy of Mr. Whole Foods.
I was being knowingly ironic about caring about doing things back when people were unaware that they were ironic about caring about doing things.
Tweety gets it right. The site is funny for the second or so it takes to realize that it's really "stuff that people who like this particular stuff like."
Plus, hating on stand mixers is cheap and hackneyed. I got up at 5:30 to make a cake, a task that would have been a lot easier if I hadn't sprayed frosting all over the place with our crappy hand mixer. I am now committed to getting a stand mixer, just like all the kitchen geeks at Cook's Illustrated. And I recycle. So bite me.
Oh, it's funny, it's just a complicated enough joke that I really want to think through it for awhile to be sure I know exactly who's being made fun of and whether I'm comfortable making fun of them in that way.
#56 Lawyers A common characteristic amongst white people is the need to over analyze things
You, LB they are making fun of you.
I like the attitude of "see how you like when I stereotype you based on your race".
How about some suggestions for future episodes?
typing erros in 66 are due to simultaneaous listening to "A Prairie Home Companion". Is that on the white people site yet?
67: Nah, if I maintain this level of uptightness, the lump of coal I have up my ass is sure to turn into a diamond any minute now, and then I'll never have to work again.
I liked the first entry at "Things White People Like," but they haven't done anything good since then.
74 wins.
Also, I've come to realize that as a white person, my lack of self-consciousness about my nose is a great unacknowledged advantage. Jews, Iranians, Michael Jackson, even Andy Warhol go through their adolescence and young adulthood constantly wondering if they should alter their nose for no other reason than to present a vaguely "whiter" gestalt to everyone who ever looks at them.
Oh check it out: there's even a link I could have used if I'd read a few more pages before snarking at Ogged.
my lack of self-consciousness about my nose
Ned? No one wanted to bring it up, but...
The site is funny for the second or so it takes to realize that it's really "stuff that people who like this particular stuff like."
But people who like that particular stuff could stand to have it brought home to them that they're often rather ridiculous and unselfaware. Not you, of course, Jesus—never you—but I'm sure that you could scout out a few people in Portland fucking Oregon who are ripe targets.
the lump of coal I have up my ass is sure to turn into a diamond any minute now, and then I'll never have to work again.
Have you ever tried to sell a diamond?
83. Are you thinking of Snatch? It's not always that difficult.
I liked the site, in part because of its tone, like "Here's a good way to get a white person going so you won't have to talk and they'll think well of you." I wish I'd read it before I ever attended dinner parties in Park Slope, as I would have gotten along a lot better.
Yeah, it's annoying that this is all associated with "whiteness," especially since most of it has little relation to, e.g., my family. But defining whiteness is a good thing to do, because otherwise, the only racial descriptions that exist are of minorities. You think all black people see themselves in descriptions of "black culture," for example? And yet there's a lot of pressure from all sides to conform superficially to some aspects of racialized stereotypes because it makes it easier to get along.
Most of the things mentioned on that blog are things that I quite often pretend to care about (or at least don't express my hatred for) just to get through conversations with people. I'm guessing this is true for a lot of individuals who don't totally fit in with the most dominant version of their own culture.
The lump of coal in the snatch might take longer to become a diamond.
I'm always thinking of snatch, Michael. Occasionally, though, I also think of decades-old articles from the Atlantic Monthly.
Which apparently they've now put up on their own site, which didn't used to be so.
Most of the things mentioned on that blog are things that I quite often pretend to care about (or at least don't express my hatred for) just to get through conversations with people.
Co-ed sports and co-op shopping, of course, you're sincerely all over.
89: Oh sure, some of the stuff was dead-on about me, but I found most fascinating the posts about the shit that I am often made to feel really really bad about not participating in.
I always underestimate the humorlessness of the commentariat. Probably because Middle-Easterners are naturally optimistic.
90: How bad do you really feel about not doing things that only people with money can really do?
I'm sure that you could scout out a few people in Portland fucking Oregon who are ripe targets
I'm too busy screaming at them to learn how to merge in traffic (from behind the wheel of our Prius, of course) to focus on their other faults.
Am I the only one going through this site hoping to find something cool I haven't heard of before?
White people enjoy activities that cost a lot of money and require expensive clothes.
God this is so true.
Well, people do try to make one feel bad about that stuff, anyway, and it's socially acceptable to do so. Often in those situations, I've tried turning it around and trying to make them feel bad for assuming privilege, but this should go on some list of "Ways you are not allowed to make people feel bad."
the lump of coal I have up my ass is sure to turn into a diamond any minute now, and then I'll never have to work again
And if the diamond trade doesn't work out, LB, there's always the coffee bean business.
Probably because Middle-Easterners are naturally optimistic.
"we will take down the U.S.A., we will take down the U.S.A., we will take down the U.S.A...."
What things have people tried to make you feel bad about, AWB?
The one about co-ed sports was really good. And that's one of two that I've read. I jus don't like the "white people" framing one bit.
Probably because Middle-Easterners are naturally optimistic.
Randomly: Has Iran always been considered part of the Middle East? Is Turkey in the Middle East?
Probably because Middle-Easterners are naturally optimistic.
Good thing, too, 'cause fucking up the middle-east is another thing white people like.
98: Oh, stuff like not having traveled. I don't even have a passport. This is because I'm dirt poor. But there is no level of poverty at which a white person can't be faulted for not having tried hard enough to travel, because anyone who hasn't traveled is obviously afraid of other cultures or something.
Randomly: Has Iran always been considered part of the Middle East? Is Turkey in the Middle East?
I think 'Asia Minor' is due for a revival.
91. Meh. Some of the entries are pretty funny. Most of them are a bit lame, some worse. In pursuit of teh funny it often overshoots into forced.
I think it intentionally mistargets `white' towards youth, privilege, urban aspirations. Why? Because it's safe to hate on. If you characterized `white' as meaning wearing 44 inch waist jeans from Walmart while you watch `American Idle' on your 56inch plasma TV and eat club-pack hamburgers in a slightly run down rancher with bad carpet ... would people feel it's safe to laugh?
Not that this is accurate either.
If you characterized `white' as meaning wearing 44 inch waist jeans from Walmart while you watch `American Idle' on your 56inch plasma TV and eat club-pack hamburgers in a slightly run down rancher with bad carpet ... would people feel it's safe to laugh?
Not a fan of The Simpsons or King of the Hill, I gather.
anyone who hasn't traveled is obviously afraid of other cultures or something
Just ignorant and narrow-minded, I think.
Of course, the English all have passports in a desperate bid to find better weather and food.
Is a ratchet screwdriver on the list? That's my favourite thing today. (That, and a health service that did indeed today provide real live house call from a real live doctor.)
Not a fan of The Simpsons or King of the Hill, I gather.
Gustavo Arellano has argued that the Simpsons are hispanic.
105: You think that would work for the blog? I don't. Could be wrong.
Barack Obama. Because white people are afraid that if they don't like him that they will be called racist.
Funny because it's true!
Is there an entry about how white people love thinking of themselves as exceptions and/or being defensive about their whiteness?
Look, the *reason* the stupid blog defines whiteness in a particularly class/education inflected way is because whiteness *is* a class/educationally inflected term, for god's sake. Blah blah cultural capital, blah blah social and economic power, blah blah the smug privilege that allows one to worry a Great Deal about one's moral purity while comfortably swaddled in incredible wealth and safety. That's kind of the *point* of "white"ness.
102: You're right, that definitely happens. And travel ends up suffused with a whole bunch of meaning. Conversation I had with a friend last year:
Friend: Where do you want to go in the next year?
Me: Well, I'm going to Seattle to see D___, and another friend of mine just moved to Chicago, so I'll probably try to visit her. And I'll be back in Berlin again for the summer. And I may try to go home to Missouri more than once this year to spend more time with my parents.
Friend: But where do you want to travel?
She couldn't believe I don't have a running list of travel destinations.
In-group humor among the relatively privileged is always a dicey proposition. It had better be very, very good*. In this case the identification of "white people" with the target demographic adds a small degree of displacement humor which is not sustainable. It wears particularly poorly in the ones where the behavior discussed is contrasted with that of the vast majority of actual white people in America.
*I think National Lampoon pulled it off for a few years in the early '70s (white college males... maybe only because I was one ...), but it faded. Probably just a variant of the "everything was better when I was 12" argument.
But ... didn't you give her just such a list?
108: I think so, if you could somehow indicate affection. Something like that is going on at that blog: per Cala, the author is, somehow, among the named. If it's self-loathing, it's not deep enough to make us think he (or she) doesn't like himself (and by extension, his readers).
If there's any issue with the joke, it's that you pretty much have to be of that cohort to get the joke. I'd bet Whole Foods and the like look pretty good to people who can't afford it and have no real likelihood of being able afford it.
114: Yeah -- it's got a bit of a self-congratulatory air about it.
White people like to discuss the differences between one group of white people and another group of white people.
110: Yeah, but it's a mess -- some of the attributes are really incredibly narrow. Others are just badly overwritten. Some are really funny though.
114.b is probably true.
it's got a bit of a self-congratulatory air about it.
What could be more "white"?
106: English all have passports in a desperate bid to find better weather and food
I think you mean, "English white people...".
it's a mess -- some of the attributes are really incredibly narrow. Others are just badly overwritten.
The horror!!!
What could be more "white"?
The time I had sex with Ogged. I really didn't want too, but was full of white guilt and didn't want to be perceived as racist.
White people totally hate having their culture anthropologized.
but was full of white guilt
I've never heard it called "guilt" before, but I like it.
114: I'd bet Whole Foods and the like look pretty good to people who can't afford it and have no real likelihood of being able afford it.
I used to shop at the First Church of Whole Foods, merely because I could walk there in a block and a half, and it wasn't significantly more expensive than the mainline St. Lund ELCA grocery a mile up the street. There are some interesting class dynamics that go on there. The fact that the clerks were about 70% drawn from the art-school-but-not-cute-enough-to-work-in-a-bar lumpen proletariat, and 30% from the usual work-in-a-grocery-'cause-its-the-best-thing-I-was-offered meant that the rich bastards could shop there and be snooty with a little more obliviousness to their own stinking privilege than at the older, unionized fancy groceries, or the sexually promiscuous co-ops which constituted the alternatives.
But you did see some actual working-class and lower-middle-class people there too. It's difficult to keep them out, you see. On the one hand, it must be a somewhat more pleasant experience than going to the big box, as it is for everyone. On the other hand, I'm sure you get the hairy eyeball if you're Black and wear hip-hop clothes just like you would anywhere else.
I don't know, in general "Is it funny? Why or why not?" is sort of an interesting question.
I find it funny in an 'okay (shrug)' kind of way, chiefly because it's so cliched. Some very funny moments (about the reaction to recycling: "Where's the recycling? Oh, you don't recycle? Um ..."), some not so much (not a lot of coops I've been to meet the description given in item #48).
What irks is probably that several of the dozen entries I read trade on the notion that white people do things simply in order to feel virtuous: this is just a variant on making fun of so-called liberal guilt. A complicated topic.
The horror!!!
No horror. Just no funny.
B, I really don't understand what you're getting at. The descriptions on that page are, to me, very representative of a bunch of people I've met. I can recognize people in a lot of them, myself and others.
It's just not a group that skews particularly white.
It's a group that is vastly less white than others I've known. Not even close. Which is what I was pointing out.
You people are wrong. Ogged is WHITE! The Persians were the original Aryans.
Aryan. White! Ask David Duke.
You're welcome, Ogged, I know that you're too polite to explain this to people.
Soup has friends who aren't white, everyone.
127: But are Lurs considered Persians?
I'm sorry (white people like apologies), but really, every time someone uses the word "Persian" I think "cat."
Wait, you're saying Ogged doesn't have a luxuriantly fluffy coat and a pushed-in face? My image of him is shattered.
I'm sorry (white people like apologies), but really, every time someone uses the word "Persian" I think "cat."
Maz Jobrani strikes again!
Since the beginning of time Persians have yearned to destroy the sun.
Easy targets + ironically bullshit racial angle = comedy gold!
Seriously this site is like reading a fortune cookie and going "oh that is so true.
I don't know if the demographic actually skews 'white', and probably not, but again, that's the funny bit. What sort of things construct whiteness? Being an uptight motherfucker with a stand mixer, that's what. Has nothing to do with what you look like.
yeah, that's exactly what I was trying to say B.
Maybe the sub-culture that website paints looks like home to you B, I don't know.
It reminds me of a bunch of people I now know. Sure, many white. But many not. All of them, though, way out in left field of what I'd think of as `white people' culture. Maybe I'm just getting the same thing AWB is talking about.
Soup has friends who aren't white, everyone.
You can't get much whiter than that.
I actually love my stand mixer. But I'm Not One of Those People, because it lives in a cupboard, rather than on prominent display, and because I do actually use it. So there.
every time someone uses the word "Persian" I think "cat."
Well, not "cat," exactly....
I really want a stand mixer, but I have nowhere to display or store it.
Being an uptight motherfucker with a stand mixer, that's what. Has nothing to do with what you look like.
'Zactly. Cala and I are launching a war against stand mixers! Who will join us?
For gawd's sake, it's not meant as social commentary.
132: I had to look up this Jobrani dude. He has an "ethnically Indian" wife. I bet Ogged disapproves.
Soup, I just think that you're being unnecessarily defensive and humorless. (I'm secretly thrilled at finding something besides feminism that puts Sifu on the defensive, though.) Just doing my trolly homework is all.
141: Betrayal! What could be more "white"?
I'm going to sum up that blog, ready?
White people generally earn more money than other people and are often shallow and self-conscious about it.
Nailed, my peeps!
In 1984, some TV commentator was baiting Jesse Jackson, saying that his support lay in the black vote. Jackson pointed to some Virginia counties he'd carried and insisted, "They white."
And my initial reaction to the site was, I'm white.
But, you know, the site grows on you. There is a culture, an American culture, that the site captures. I'm not part of it. I didn't come here 'til I was 21; I wasn't naturalized until I was 30, so I come to the culture from outside it. But I recognize the culture. It's more an upper middle class culture than a white culture -- Obama is, after all, part of it: hell, he's a lawyer with a thousand bottle wine cellar -- but the upper middle class *is* mostly white.
141: You didn't get a stand mixer for a wedding present? That's just wrong, man.
Why the fuck didn't we, the unfoggedetariat, buy Cala a stand mixer? We totally suck.
145: Omigod! That is, like, so true! It can be #71.
(Hanging there. Asking for it.)
soup biscuit gets it right. When I was growing up, 99% of the people I knew were white, and none of them were described by this site. Now that I live in the city, I know lots of people described by this site, and maybe 75% of them are white. I refute you thus!
Sifu, you *know* it isn't about the money. Because there are *plenty* of us right here on this site who are Not Rich but who nonetheless ride bikes/recycle/get into the Slow Foods movement/etc.
143: Well shiiiiiiiiiiiiiiiit.
No worries, I just didn't find it that funny, after a few. Just sort of formulaic. And I did suspect it was intentionally targeted at people who are both easy and safe to slag on, which weakens it. I certainly didn't see it as social commentary.
Because there are *plenty* of us right here on this site who are Not Rich but who nonetheless are uptight motherfuckers with stand mixers.
I'm sorry, but if you guys really don't realize that that site is totally describing us, the Unfoggedtariat, with our long comment threads about petty bullshit, then y'all are way more humorless than even I am rumored to be.
I am an uptight motherfucker without a stand mixer or a bicycle. Nevertheless!
152: Exactly. Now you're getting it, Soup! Next you'll admit that you secretly luuuurve Whole Foods!
I'm sorry, but if you guys really don't realize that that site is totally describing us, the Unfoggedtariat, with our long comment threads about petty bullshit, then y'all are way more humorless than even I am rumored to be.
"And I did suspect it was intentionally targeted at people who are both easy and safe to slag on, which weakens it."
We're not disagreeing here.
I haven't got any of this stuff.
I practice a form of Higher Whiteness, which that site is not yet ready to understand.
White people dislike to be stereotyped, especially if the stereotype is inaccurate.
155: First I've got to get a stand mixer. Through the wonders of consumer capitalism, my dream is achievable.
By the way, NOT THAT ANY OF YOU ASKED, you assholes, but I haven't been around much this week because I have been so loving riding around town on my new bike! I even sent Ogged a snotty email about how I was Saving The Earth.
(Y'all better believe I'm wearing sunblock while biking around Ventura. Gotta protect my sensitive skin from premature aging, y'know.)
Why the fuck didn't don't we, the unfoggedetariat, buy Cala Jesus McQueen a stand mixer? We totally suck.
What a great idea! It would be mighty white of you.
Yeah that's hard. Look at those ovdreducated types! They totally navel-gaze! Oh, snap! Satire any more toothless and it would be breastfeeding.
"And I did suspect it was intentionally targeted at people who are both easy and safe to slag on, which weakens it."
Oh, neighbor, please. Unlike the Modern Love threads or the political threads or what have you.
Is there an entry about how white people love spf factors? B/c if there isn't, there totally should be.
150: I keep on trying to pin down what's giving me an off feeling about this: is it that it's making fun of hippies by accusing them of being overprivileged and phony about social concerns? The entries really aren't mocking just privileged white people, they're particularly aimed at recycling-world-music-listening-fair-trade-coffee-drinking-bike-riding hippies.
And making fun of hippies is cool, and I think it's why Megan picked this up, because she's squarely in the crosshairs. But I don't like the "Pretending to care about poor people/the environment/other cultures unequivocally establishes what a self-centered clod you are. I, the writer, am better and more sensitive than you are in racial terms because I don't share your faked concern." There's something creepy about that move.
If it were making fun of affluent young hippies directly, I wouldn't be unhappy. But taking left-wing political positions as proof of how hopelessly insensitively white you are smells bad to me.
I'm sorry, but if you guys really don't realize that that site is totally describing us, the Unfoggedtariat, with our long comment threads about petty bullshit, then y'all are way more humorless than even I am rumored to be.
I think everyone gets that, so you're still the champ.
Jesus, you gotta have a major life event in order to earn a stand mixer.
Mmm. Not so much on the hippies, just the faux-hippie these-jeans-were-made-with-slave-labor-but-my-coffee-is-fair-trade. Pretty privileged. A lot of it was social climbing consumption, too; home renovations, vintage furniture, etc.
166 gets it exactly right. I erred on my first reading of the site, because it's not just making fun of rich people, it's making fun of people who care about things from the point of view of the down-to-earth people who realize that caring about things is bullshit. And, of course, presuming that the people who care about things are all rich people who should be scorned independently of whether they care about things, which is even worse.
Is there an entry about how white people love spf factors? B/c if there isn't, there totally should be.
Now that's one that would actually be specific to white people. And Koreans.
But taking left-wing political positions as proof of how hopelessly insensitively white you are smells bad to me.
I think your claim that white people smell bad is much more offensive than anything I saw on that site.
I cannot believe people are complaining some random blog is not sufficiently nuanced to be...gawd knows? Truly funny? Sufficiently appropriate that we can laugh?
LB, she's making fun of social gestures of concern. Not that caring about the poor is bad, but that pretending to care about the poor, as a way of establishing one's own (and one's group's) identity is worthy of mockery. I don't think any of the mockery really points to the underlying thought that *actually* caring about the poor is bad.
I don't think any of the mockery really points to the underlying thought that *actually* caring about the poor is bad.
I think it sort of takes the assumption that nobody actually cares about the poor, because these people are the closest to actually caring, and they don't care either.
Not so much on the hippies, just the faux-hippie these-jeans-were-made-with-slave-labor-but-my-coffee-is-fair-trade. Pretty privileged.
Everyone's jeans were made with slave labor.
I believe that Witt's first words to me were "Damn, this place is white!"
nobody actually cares about the poor
And this is, basically, true.
Everyone's jeans were made with slave labor
But not everyone knows to brag about it.
169, 172: That's why I don't like the racializing -- it seems to me to make that split, between "making fun of people who care about things" as Ned puts it, and making fun of overprivileged people who only pretend to care about things, hard to to make.
But I don't need to convince anyone, I just wanted to pin down what was bothering me about it, and I got it to my own satisfaction.
y'all are way more humorless than even I am rumored to be.
rumored?
Satire any more toothless and it would be breastfeedingcocksucking.
(edited to be brought in accord with house style)
165: The trek 7200. Which I am so totally loving. Even though the trek bike shop folks were kinda "meh" about me and my cheapo $450 bike purchase. Luckily, there's another, local and independent, bike shop in town, where they are much nicer and don't make me feel stupid. I'm totally going to buy a cup holder for my new bike there next time I ride downtown. Did you know you can get proper cup holders now to hold your latte while you bike around? How awesome is that?!?
166: Semi-fair. I don't think it's hippies per se, though, so much as it is a certain version of affluent educated/professional/u-m-cness. Which there is a *lot* of here in So Cal, and it really is kind of irritating. It *isn't* the kind of grungy hippie thing at all. It's the well off type of person who intends to convert their 2000-sf million dollar home to solar energy, or who buys an entire grass-fed buffalo carcass from Colorado every year and has it shipped down to put in cold storage.
Which sure, is better than not doing it. But it's kind of missing a major point or two. (And yeah, I totally have fantasies about putting in solar panels when we buy a house.)
110 has it exactly right
I have been trying to come up with something like "black people are white if they listen to indie rock and vote for clinton" without any implications of UTism. Basically "white" is used here as a descriptor like "square" or "uncool" or "tragically hip"
176: A lot of people care about the poor. But hardly anyone does anything about the problem of poverty, because one person's actions are unlikely to have any effect. I guess "white people" are more likely to pretend that what they do in their spare time is actually effective in any way.
pretending to care about the poor, as a way of establishing one's own (and one's group's) identity is worthy of mockery.
And it certainly is. What's weird is that the group of people who actually appear to be doing this is pretty small.
I denounce the horrible ethnic stereotyping of my people! No one would say "Black people love fried chicken" so how can they dare say that all white people like Priuses? I've lived among white people my whole life, and I can assure you that white people love all sorts of vehicles, from pick-up trucks to SUVs. My dad, who is so white he is actually The Face of True Power in the US, like European sports cars.
I'm offended!
(And probably pwned.)
Did you know you can get proper cup holders now to hold your latte while you bike around? How awesome white is that?!?
They make latte-holders for bicycles these days? Okay, that really is white.
186, 187: Thanks for making that explicit, guys.