Stuff White People Like

So in general, and without doing much research, I find Stuff White People Like to be really stupid. I've never really liked comedy that points out the obvious and SWPL is basically that, yes Yuppies like fair trade coffee, yoga, and gay friends, big freaking deal. Some of the elaborations are amusing (white people like gifted kids, and there for all kids are gifted) but I find most of the humor so obvious that it's boring. I agree with this article's break down of the humor in SWPL:

In fact, all the site's entries, while superficially chiding, can actually be divided into three very comforting categories:

1) Entries that don't reflect your lifestyle choices (in my case: going nuts on St. Patrick's Day, running marathons), and therefore make you feel superior.

2) Entries that do reflect your lifestyle choices (Apple products, recycling), and therefore make you feel like you're in on the joke, and that you're good-humored enough to laugh at yourself (you know--like Gene Simmons!), and therefore make you feel superior.

3) Entries that nod to commonly held comic stereotypes (white people like assists in basketball and standing still at concerts), and therefore, because you recognize them, make you feel superior.

But that sums up all the humor I dislike, so I guess I should get over myself.

The real point of this post is that I just listened to an NPR feature (oh no my whiteness is showing!) on the author. Link! Besides actually being intelligent in his summery of SWPL, Christian Lander points out how white people don't like to be generalized, but that's what they do to everyone else (around 4:50). SWPL and Lander are not making any leaps to making white people more accepting of privilege or race issues, but that did make me dislike SWPL a little less. I'm mostly impressed at how something so stupid can be defended in such an intelligent way.

Now I'm going to go off and enjoy some more stuff white people like (NPR, tea, and expensive sandwiches).