Stuff White People Like, Book Review

I just finished Christian Lander’s Stuff White People Like. It was hilarious. For those of you who haven’t heard of it, Lander makes fun of white people, particularly the kind living in Portland. He goes ahead and lists out 150 topics and writes about a one page summary of why people like it. Some of Lander’s targets include Farmer’s Markets, hating corporations, gentrification, knowing what’s best for poor people, etc.

Anyways, as I neared the end of the book, I didn’t feel like the book got me that badly, and I was thinking high and mighty of myself. Psh Christian Lander thinks he can nail all young people, he can’t get me, but he did get x, y, and z white people that I know. They are such stereotypes. But not me, I’m totally original. And of course, the second to last topic was “Self-Importance/blogging.”

To paraphrase, he explains how this topic epitomizes white people, and actually provides the explanation behind every other topic in the book. White people like farmers markets and scarves, not because they like vegetables and being warm, but because it makes them feel important and cool. Through blogging, white people have taken the thoughts that they previously recorded in personal diaries, to a public platform, and concurrently taken self-importance to a whole new level.

All that to say, that’s what I’ve been doing for the past ten months. I specialize in concerns about the future, over-analyzing insignificant events, and thinking about myself. And I’m ok with it. I think telling stories, relating with others, and helping lift the weight of others is the point of life. And maybe my story can tell others, “Yeah, it’s ok to think about yourself sometimes, and yeah, it’s ok to think about life sometimes.”

It’s like David Foster Wallace’s famed commencement speech at Kenyon College a few years back. It starts with a story of two young fish swimming through the river, and they see an older fish that greets them, “Howdy boys, how’s the water?” and goes by. Later, one of the young fish says to the other, “What’s water?”

Maybe it’s not necessary for everyone to keep an online running commentary of their thoughts, as here. But I think it’s good for everyone to think about life sometimes, and now I’ll defer to the wisdom of a story-teller far superior to myself:

“Our business is to give our world and ourselves tools to imagine and create and heal. Stories that cherish the quiet moments. Stories of a world that works for everyone. Stories about a world worth saving.”
- Brian Andreas

from ken

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