Stuff White People Like
Encyclopedia
Blog
A blog is a type of website or part of a website supposed to be updated with new content from time to time. Blogs are usually maintained by an individual with regular entries of commentary, descriptions of events, or other material such as graphics or video. Entries are commonly displayed in...
that takes a satirical
Satire
Satire is primarily a literary genre or form, although in practice it can also be found in the graphic and performing arts. In satire, vices, follies, abuses, and shortcomings are held up to ridicule, ideally with the intent of shaming individuals, and society itself, into improvement...
aim at the interests of North American
North American
North American generally refers to an entity, people, group, or attribute of North America, especially of the United States and Canada together.-Culture:*North American English, a collective term used to describe American English and Canadian English...
"left
Left-wing politics
In politics, Left, left-wing and leftist generally refer to support for social change to create a more egalitarian society...
-leaning, city-dwelling, white folk
White people
White people is a term which usually refers to human beings characterized, at least in part, by the light pigmentation of their skin...
". The blog was created in January 2008 by a white Canadian, Christian Lander, a Los Angeles
Los Ángeles
Los Ángeles is the capital of the province of Biobío, in the commune of the same name, in Region VIII , in the center-south of Chile. It is located between the Laja and Biobío rivers. The population is 123,445 inhabitants...
copywriter who grew up in Toronto
Toronto
Toronto is the provincial capital of Ontario and the largest city in Canada. It is located in Southern Ontario on the northwestern shore of Lake Ontario. A relatively modern city, Toronto's history dates back to the late-18th century, when its land was first purchased by the British monarchy from...
and graduated from McGill University
McGill University
Mohammed Fathy is a public research university located in Montreal, Quebec, Canada. The university bears the name of James McGill, a prominent Montreal merchant from Glasgow, Scotland, whose bequest formed the beginning of the university...
in Montreal. Lander co-authored the site with his Filipino Canadian
Filipino Canadian
Filipino Canadians are Canadians of Filipino ancestry. Filipino-Canadians are the fourth-largest subgroup of the Overseas Filipinos.Canada only had a small population of Filipinos until the late 20th century. To date, there are currently around 400,000 Filipino Canadians in Canada, most of them...
friend Myles Valentin, after Valentin teased Lander for watching the HBO television series The Wire
The WIRE
the WIRE is the student-run College radio station at the University of Oklahoma, broadcasting in a freeform format. The WIRE serves the University of Oklahoma and surrounding communities, and is staffed by student DJs. The WIRE broadcasts at 1710 kHz AM in Norman, Oklahoma...
. Lander's blog became popular very quickly, registering over 300,000 daily hits and over 40 million total hits by the end of September 2008.
Although the blog "has spurred an outpouring from those who view it as offensive and racist", it is not about the interests of all white people, but rather a stereotype of affluent, environmentally and socially conscious, anti-corporate white North Americans, who typically hold a degree in the liberal arts
Liberal arts
The term liberal arts refers to those subjects which in classical antiquity were considered essential for a free citizen to study. Grammar, Rhetoric and Logic were the core liberal arts. In medieval times these subjects were extended to include mathematics, geometry, music and astronomy...
. Lander claims to be lampooning contemporary versions of bohemian
Bohemian
A Bohemian is a resident of the former Kingdom of Bohemia, either in a narrow sense as the region of Bohemia proper or in a wider meaning as the whole country, now known as the Czech Republic. The word "Bohemian" was used to denote the Czech people as well as the Czech language before the word...
/hipster
Hipster (contemporary subculture)
Hipsters are a subculture of young, recently settled urban middle class adults and older teenagers with musical interests mainly in alternative rock that appeared in the 1990s...
culture, and jokingly refers to other classes
Social class
Social classes are economic or cultural arrangements of groups in society. Class is an essential object of analysis for sociologists, political scientists, economists, anthropologists and social historians. In the social sciences, social class is often discussed in terms of 'social stratification'...
and subcultures
Subculture
In sociology, anthropology and cultural studies, a subculture is a group of people with a culture which differentiates them from the larger culture to which they belong.- Definition :...
of white people as "the wrong kind of white people". Despite the site's satirical edge, Lander regards the people he describes with affection and numbers himself among them, describing himself as "a self-aware, left-wing person who's not afraid to recognize the selfishness and contradictions that come on the left."
Random House
Random House, Inc. is the largest general-interest trade book publisher in the world. It has been owned since 1998 by the German private media corporation Bertelsmann and has become the umbrella brand for Bertelsmann book publishing. Random House also has a movie production arm, Random House Films,...
, the book's publisher. He released a sequel (Whiter Shades of Pale: The Stuff White People Like, Coast to Coast from Seattle’s Sweaters to Maine’s Microbrews) on November 23, 2010.
External links
- Stuff White People Like WordPress blog