According to Christian Lander, white people like farmers’ markets, “The Daily Show/Colbert Report,” knowing what’s best for poor people, indie music, being the only white person around, Mos Def and pea coats. The list continues on Lander’s blog, StuffWhitePeopleLike.com, a site that details 111 things that Lander believes white people as a whole enjoy.
The man behind the blog and the author of the New York Times Best Seller, “Stuff White People Like” is in Madison today. Lander, a Canadian, will host a talk and book signing event at Borders Books and Music (west side location) tonight at 7 p.m. as a part of the Wisconsin Book Festival.
No. 80 on the list of Stuff White People Like is “The Idea of Soccer.”
“Many white people will tell you that they are very into soccer. But be careful, it’s a trap. If you then attempt to engage them about your favorite soccer team or talk about famous moments in soccer history, you are likely to be met with blank stares. This is because white people don’t actually enjoy watching soccer, they just like telling their friends that they are into it,” Lander writes.
Lander spoke with The Badger Herald recently in a phone interview and explained his inspiration for the blog and book.
“In January of this year, my friend Myles [Valentin] and I were having an Instant Messenger conversation about the TV show ‘The Wire,’ and Myles, who is Filipino, said he didn’t trust any white person who didn’t watch the show. And so we just came up with a bunch of ideas of what [they are] doing instead of watching ‘The Wire.’ And that was sort of the spark that just ignited all of these things,” Lander said.
Lander writes the majority of the posts, with Valentin creating a few including the “Asian girls” and “Oscar parties” entries.
In an interview with The Boston Globe, Lander expanded on the group of people he describes in his blog: “This is the stereotyping of people who have tried to distance themselves from what they perceive as white stereotypes: the white trash, the Republican.”
Whatwhitepeoplelike.com has had over 45 million hits to date, and Lander remains humble. “I feel like 20 million [hits] are my dad hitting refresh.”
Despite his modesty, it is clear Lander has found an audience for his posts, in which he draws from both his own likes and trends he has observed.
“The funniest stuff is where I’m really attacking myself. I don’t like outdoor performance gear like fleeces and all that stuff, but other than that I’m pretty guilty of almost everything on there,” Lander said.
Lander has faced negative criticism for the site’s racial generalizations ? after all, the site revolves around stereotypes.
“I get some criticism, just people saying, ‘All stereotypes are bad,’ ‘Doing this is terrible for racial relations,’ ‘This is stupid,’ ‘This is awful,’ so I get a bit of that, but for the most part any other criticism is some graduate-student type stuff, saying, ‘This just reinforces dominant hegemony’ and all that sort of stuff,” Lander said. “And nobody reads what graduate students think. I used to be one, so I know for sure.”
At his speaking and book signing engagement today, Lander will explain his background as well as the blog’s background , read segments of the book and entertain questions from the audience.
“The Q&A is always the most fun, so hopefully people will bring questions,” Lander said. “Yesterday, in St. Louis, some very odd man asked me if there were a lot of good-looking 40-year-old women in California. So that was by far the weirdest [question I have received]. It’s funny now — at the time I thought he was going to choke me or kill me or something, but now I can laugh at it.”
Christian Lander will be speaking and signing books at Borders Books and Music (3750 University Ave.) today at 7 p.m. Learn more about what white people like at Stuffwhitepeoplelike.com.
