Stuff White People Like: Self-Referential Jokes on the Internet

http://stuffwhitepeoplelike.wordpress.com/

I have had more than one friend e-mail me links to posts on the website stuff_white_people_like.com There is writing on everything from marathon running to having bilingual children to the New York Times. The self-description is the following: “This is a scientific approach to highlight and explain stuff white people like. They are pretty predictable.”

The glaring problem with these posts is that they are about rich white people, which makes me think that the editors are just self-loathing.

In any case, I think the most interesting thing about the website is the responses. For one, smart writing is usually misunderstood. People tend to respond with the following: "I'm white and I don't like X".

There are also those however that take many of the posts literally. For example, many will respond with racial slurs, homophobic and sexist comments. In some twisted sense the posts come off as validating white privilege. Then again, some of these responses are also meant in jest, which seems to make less sense.

Many of the posts receive up to one thousand responses. It will be interesting to see what happens to the website when businesses take notice. For now, it kind of reminds me of South Park on a blog.