Stuff White People Like

What do these things have in common?

Red hair. Dinner parties. Liberal arts degrees. Hipster weddings. Products made by people named Tom. Halloween. Camping. Knowing what’s best for poor people. Vespas. Ray-Ban Wayfarers. Road trips. Girls with bangs. Trivia. IKEA. Taking a year off. Nostalgia. Ugly sweater parties. Mad Men. Appearing to enjoy classical music. Being offended. Hating people who wear Ed Hardy. Expensive sandwiches. Juno. Irony. American Apparel. Hummus. Flea markets. British slang. Moleskine notebooks. Vintage. Sushi. Promising to learn a new language. Apple products. Whole Foods and grocery co-ops. Not having a TV. Microbreweries. Traveling. Expensive versions of cheap food. Black music that black people don’t listen to anymore. Wes Anderson movies. Awareness. Conan O’Brien. Unpaid internships.

According to Christian Lander, they’re things that all white people like. Well, not the “wrong” kind of white person, which he says is like a frat boy who listens to Dave Matthews or a Republican woman who wears mom jeans. This group of white people is made up of a whole bunch of people who love to think they’re so different and unique, when in fact they have almost the exact same preferences and tendencies as every other 20-or-30-something progressive, “hip” white person.

What is so hilarious to me about his blog and the books he’s written is that it was like looking into a mirror. I really had thought that so much of what I loved made me “different,” but when he goes into specific detail about how white people, as a whole, feel about things… oohhhh man, it was like he had been spying on me for several years and compiled a list of all the things I love and hate. I guess it was further proof that some stereotypes exist for a reason, and I’m one of ‘em. Ha.

Well, anyway, we were in Borders over Thanksgiving and I spotted Lander’s latest book, Whiter Shades of Pale. He really outdid himself with this one. We bought it and spent the rest of the day reading passages out loud and cracking up. You must go check it out, especially if you found yourself liking 75% or more of the above list of things.

Also, I can’t help but share one of my favorite passages from the book, because I could not get over how TRUE it was for me and so many of my friends. I had never actually thought about it like this, but Lander hits the nail on the head. Well done sir!

#31. Anthropologie

“White people love the discipline of anthropology (see Barack Obama’s Mother) as a field of graduate study. In fact, you could probably say that white people love everything about anthropology, so when a store opens that takes the French word for the subject as its name, you can only imagine the reception.

If you are hoping to have any sort of friendship or relationship with a white woman, it is a must that you learn about Anthropologie. You might have walked past it a few times at your local mall and wondered how they crammed the interior of a late-nineteenth-century barn into a shopping center that was built in 2005.

When you step inside, the aged hardwood floor and antique birdhouses and worn furniture will transport you to a time period that never existed but is able to somehow seamlessly merge elements from disparate decades. In other words, Anthropologie is the store equivalent of a Wes Anderson film, which certainly helps to explain its appeal.

Everything they sell at this store is brand-new but looks as though it’s come from a thrift shop. So you might be wondering why white people would shop here instead of a much cheaper thrift shop. The answer is that while thrift shops will occasionally contain a gem like a perfectly worn velvet couch from the forties, for the most part they are filled with old computers, exercise equipment, and black pro-wrestling t-shirts. White women do not have the time to search through racks and racks of shoulder-padded clothing to find the perfect lace dress that will likely not be in their size.

Anthropologie offers white women a thrift store with all the bad taken out (unfashionable clothes, strange smells, actual poor people) and only the good left behind. As an homage to its inspiration, the store still keeps things buried under tables and in bins that require some digging. This enables a white person to feel as though they have accomplished something by locating a knit top, but it does not prevent them from finding a similar product when they are in a hurry.

If the concept is still difficult to grasp, the simplest way to explain it is that Anthropologie is the most efficient way for white women to look and (hopefully) live like Amelie. If you have not seen Amelie, do so at your earliest convenience. It is essential to understanding white people.

When the time comes to provide a white woman with a gift, you can approach it from one of two angles. If she prefers clothing over home decor, you should get her a gift certificate. It will show that you understand her. If she like home decor, go to the store and buy something like a doorknob or salt shaker. Then tell her that you got it from an estate sale from a delightfully eccentric old woman on your street. For some reason, crazy old women are universally recognized as the best former owners of stuff.”