Stuff White People Like (6 page)

All Victorian novels
“So your favorite books are
Pride and Predjudice, Wuthering Heights
, and
Vanity Fair
? Convenient that they’ve all been turned into movies, don’t you think?”

Michael Pollan,
The Omnivore’s Dilemma
“The politics of food are fascinating, and this book will change the way you eat and the way you think forever.”

James Joyce,
Finnegans Wake
“I love Joyce, although I feel as though
Dubliners
captures the spirit of the Irish more than this book.” (Note: It is an old white-person trick to steer conversation away from books that you have not read.)

William S. Burroughs,
Junky
“Did you like
Trainspotting
? Yeah, well, Burroughs was doing that in 1960 with this book.” (Note: Do not bring up
Naked Lunch
; white people don’t even pretend to understand it.)

Jack Kerouac,
On the Road
“I read this book when I was sixteen years old. I would say that by the time I reached page 2, I knew I wanted to be a writer.” (Note: Advanced white people are disgusted by people who like this book.)

Chuck Palahniuk,
Lullaby
“You know, I’ve never even read
Fight Club
. I find his other works to be far more engaging.”

Nick Hornby,
How to Be Good
“I fell in love with Hornby when I read
High Fidelity
in 1995, and I think he gets better with each book. This one is my absolute favorite though.”

Jay McInerney,
Bright Lights, Big City
Note: This novel is written in second person (“You step outside,” etc.). This makes it very easy to test if a white person has actually read it or just watched the movie starring Michael J. Fox.

Bret Easton Ellis,
American Psycho
“Reading Ellis is like watching an amazingly melodramatic soap opera and then realizing that it actually taught you something at the end. I can’t tell you how much time I really spent thinking, just thinking, after reading this book.”

David Foster Wallace,
Infinite Jest
“Did you know that this book is more than 1,000 pages long? I read it in high school, on spring break. A thousand pages.”

Marcel Proust,
Remembrance of Things Past
“I hope to read this one day.” (Note: Any person who has actually read all fifteen volumes has a graduate degree in English.)

26 Manhattan (and Now Brooklyn, Too!)

Oftentimes if you ask white people about where to travel, you will get a lot of responses. But if you ask them about New York, white people will go nuts. They love the city universally and either live there, have lived there, will live there, or want to live there.

White people like New York because it has artists, restaurants, a subway, history, diversity, plays, and other white people. It literally has everything white people need to thrive! The only thing it’s missing is nature, but Central Park is right there, and since you are walking all the time, you are outside!

If you are from New York, mention it to a white person. They will be instantly fascinated and start asking questions. When they inevitably tell you what they know about your hometown (“I know this great Italian place…”), you should respond by saying, “Man, I thought only New Yorkers knew about that spot.”

Another secret fact about white people: if you are in a group setting and the topic of New York City comes up, find the highest-ranking white person and say, “Oh, are you from New York?” To them, this means you are calling them cultured, cool, and urban. They will respond with something like, “Oh, well, I’ve spent a lot of time there” or “I lived there for three months.” You will have instantly become popular.

27 Marathons

In life, there are certain milestones of physical activity that can define you: a 40-yard dash in under 5 seconds, a 40-inch vertical leap, and so forth. To a white person, the absolute pinnacle of fitness is to run a marathon. Not to win, just to run.

White people will train for months, telling everyone who will listen about how they get up early in the morning, how they run when it rains, how it makes them feel so great and gives them energy.

When they finish the marathon, they will generally take a photo of themselves in a pair of New Balance sneakers and running shorts, with their marathon number held in both hands over their head in triumph. (Seriously, look it up, this is universal.)

They will then set goals like running in the Boston Marathon or the New York City Marathon.

If you find yourself in a situation where a white person is talking about a marathon, you must be impressed or you will lose favor with them immediately. Running for a certain length of time on a specific day is a very important thing to a white person and should not be demeaned.

Also worth noting: the more competitive white people prefer triathlons because Kenyans can’t afford $10,000 specialty bicycles. If the subject ever comes up, just say that triathletes are in better shape than football and basketball players. It’s not true, but it will make the conversation a lot more genial.

28 Not Having a TV

The number-one reason white people like not having a TV is so that they can tell you that they don’t have a TV.

On those lonely nights when white people wish they could be watching
American Idol, Lost,
or
Grey’s Anatomy,
they comfort themselves by thinking of how when people talk about the show tomorrow they can say, “I didn’t see it, I don’t have a TV. That stuff rots your brain.” It is effective in making other white people feel bad, and making themselves feel good about their life and life choices.

These people often fill their time by talking to other friends who don’t watch TV about how they don’t watch TV, looking at leaves, cooking, reading books about left-wing politics, and going to concerts/protests/poetry slams.

Generally, this makes them very boring and gives you very little to talk to them about. It’s important that you
never
suggest they are making a mistake or that there is value to owning a TV. You should just try to steer the conversation to allow them to talk about how they are better than you.

29 ’80s Night

If you ever find yourself wanting to take your relationship with white people to the next level, one of the best places to meet a potential partner is at any ’80s-night event in your local city.

White people cannot get enough of ’80s music, partly out of nostalgia and partly since it was the last time that pop music wasn’t infused with hip-hop or R ’n’ B stylings. Artists like Joy Division, New Order, and Elvis Costello were all pretty well respected and had solid runs at the charts. Also, less respected artists like Wham, Rick Astley, and Cameo are still easy for white people to dance to.

If you are in a social situation and wish to turn it into one more conducive for romance, you should always ask, “Does anyone know a club with a good ’80s night?” at which point you will be flooded with suggestions and invitations to dance to Debbie Gibson songs.

30 Wrigley Field

One of the best things someone can do to gain the respect and trust of a white person is to attend a baseball game with them at Wrigley Field, the home of the Chicago Cubs. In addition to being one of the favorite baseball teams of white people (after the Boston Red Sox), the stadium is viewed as a must visit for virtually all white people regardless of their concern for the actual Cubs.

There are rumors that Wrigley Field is like that device in
The Fly
that turned Jeff Goldblum into a bug, except that instead of turning a human into an insect, it can turn nonwhite people into white people. The best evidence of this comes from the ’80s TV show
Perfect Strangers,
in which the foreigner Balki Bartokomous needed only to attend one game at the famed field to join his cousin Larry as a white person.

So why do white people love it so much? The biggest reason is that white people love historical buildings. This is because they are reminded of the olden days, when everything was made out of brick and ethnic mothers yelled out windows at their children to stop playing stickball and come in for dinner. Wrigley is a reminder of days gone by, although it is unwise to point out that white people are being nostalgic for an era when baseball was only played by white people. It will make them feel sad and will likely ruin their expensive “bleacher” seats.

White people also enjoy the neighborhood around Wrigley Field, as it is filled with old houses, “character,” and white people. This cannot be understated, as the Chicago White Sox used to play in the oldest stadium in the league, but because of its location on the South Side, it didn’t have quite the same appeal to generations of white college students.