Stuff White People Like is the first blog I have laughed at in a long, long time. The blog, which is becoming exponentially more popular by the day, lists–well–stuff white people like:

Knowing what’s best for poor people [SWPL #18]
Juno [SWPL #57]
Being the only white person around [SWPL #71]
Mos Def [SWPL #69]

In a prose which appears to be a hybrid between academic and journalistic tones, SWPL deconstructs the reasons for white peoples’ adoration of these particular subjects. Take the subject “Being an expert in YOUR culture [SWPL #18],” for example, which considers the white person’s ongoing quest for authenticity and desire to separate themselves from the guilt related to their legacy:

“It is imperative that you recognize how special and unique this white person is for knowing about your culture. Acceptable responses include ‘Wow, I’ve never seen white people order chicken feet,’ or ‘How did you find out about that film? I didn’t think they had dubbed it yet.’”

Of particular interest is the immediate popularity of the blog, which was launched shy of two months ago and has already logged over two million views. Part of its ongoing draw likely comes from the endless, masturbatory and over-analytical conversations that occur on each post’s comment message boards (that I have, admittedly, engaged in). If this dialogue weren’t so typically dense, serious, or off mark, it would likely be as funny as the blog itself. Take for example the commentary that came when then the blog attributed a liking of Mos Def to white people:

“You know what else white people like? They like to create ‘ironic’ blogs. So white, these blogs full of irony!”

“You’ve got the young trendy Democrats down, but I think you’re forgetting the other, less-PC bunch.”

“Imagine if I, as a white guy, started a blog called ‘Stuff black people like,’ and filled it with watermelon, fried chicken, dancing, gold teeth, cheap beer, pimping, etc.”

These comments, which I suspect are directly related to “Awareness” [SWPL #18], “Public Radio” [SWPL #44] and loosely related to our militant appreciation for “Diversity” [SWPL #7], display a characteristic that I anticipate will soon be on the list: “White people love taking things too seriously.” This is especially true if it gives us an opportunity to a) get up in arms about a topic and b) quote things they read as an undergrad in an attempt to prove to themselves that an undergraduate degree still means something. I know this because I, an authentic white person myself, am about to do both.

The first comment, the one related to irony, is a given. That’s part of the joke, friends. There is already a post about white people loving irony; why would the blog state its obvious, underlying punch-line?

The second in the third comments are expressing two different sentiments about one thing: SWPL is largely funny because it treats white people the same general way it treats black people by selecting an obvious, though not at all wholly representative cross section of the “race” and it applies that generalization to everyone in the community. Yes, it is examining the “trendy Democrats” (it has also been suggested in a number of different comments that the blog be specific about the demographic it is targeting, which would also largely miss the point), or as a friend of mine who studied at Connecticut College once summed up, not just white people:

“The picture of the girl on the about page [young, white study-abroader with a black baby slung to her back, pictured above] could definitely have been me [in South Africa] circa 2003. It’s not just ANY white girl, but a white girl from a prestigious liberal arts college in the Northeast.”

SWPL is a reverse take on the institutional racism that created the popularization of the “I have a black friend, and he thinks…” line. The third comment misses the point especially, suggesting that the only form of racism is manifested by making gross generalizations about people. He does not consider that an environment in which the only films made by and starring black people that can count on studio promotion typically feature a zany, old man, a big-assed and sassy no-nonsense bitch with a golden heart and Ice Cube/Martin Lawrence going on some sort of wild adventure. Furthermore, it ignores that the reality of an American black voice, created of a people who had to create a narrative to replace the one stolen from them, is much closer to being actual than an American white voice. Europeans largely created and institutionalized race division, and white people are white by default of having established “the other” as black. I don’t go around talking about my “white heritage” because a) such a construction doesn’t exist and b) because the people who insist that it does exist are most-often of the cross burning sort. I, for one, don’t like riding horses, white hoods, Tom Tancredo, and I’m deathly afraid of fire.

While the super-serious, tongue in cheek documentary lampooning of white folks has been humorously taken on in straight-to-video releases by [Simpsons’ voice actor] Harry Shearer and Martin Mull in the 80s with their make-shift “white people” case studies: The History of White People in America Volumes I and II and Portrait of a White Marriage, SWPL takes the task to a more multi-dimensional level. On the whole, the site is hilarious in its simultaneous lampooning hip, white, know-it-alls on the surface, and criticizing elements of portrayals of race in the media underneath. It is a reification in the vein of the Slovenian-based NSK collective while maintaining the accessibility of The Onion or The Colbert Report.

Or at least that’s part of what I learned in my fancy college education.