Whiter Shades of Pale (33 page)

Cargo shorts contain Vegemite.

Australian law requires all citizens to wear Blundstones.

Throughout history, leaders of organized religion have always searched for ways to increase their number of followers and converts. Some have relied on force, others on charity, and others simply on birthrates. Though it has never been confirmed, there are sneaking suspicions that Buddhist leaders created Thailand for the sole purpose of converting white people to Buddhism.

It is literally impossible for a white person to travel to Thailand and not return as a Buddhist. This conversion is a powerful experience, one that will result in a potential trip to a temple when they return home, maybe reading a few books, and the inevitable acquisition of a Buddha or a Buddha head. The latter of course is based on income and space available at home.

Buddhism meshes quite well with white people since they interpret the religion as a reaffirmation that everything they are doing is just great and they’ll be fine in the afterlife. For a white person there is no better spiritual awakening than one that tells you that you were right all along. It’s like taking a journey to find the meaning of life and when you get to the end there’s a copy of your student film from college.

When white people are told that a key tenet of Buddhism is that all suffering is caused by desire, they understand immediately that they have been so depressed because they want that Eames chair that they can’t afford. Finally religion is put into terms they can understand.

But with so many white people undertaking this identical journey, you
would expect them to eventually realize that they are all taking the same trip. Yet no matter how many thousands of white people travel to Thailand each year, every person who makes the journey likes to believe they are the first Western eyes to ever see a crumbling Buddhist temple.

White people don’t just come back from this spiritual journey with a taste for enlightenment; they also bring a taste for pad thai. Their two-week vacation was more than enough time for them to become experts on the national dish of the country, and within the white community they are given full rights to complain about any and all local Thai food being “watered down” for other white people’s palates.

However, it should be noted that the passion white people have for Thai food is directed mostly to pad thai, curries, and dishes with ingredients they recognize. If you hear a white person telling you how much they love Thai food, do not take them for boat noodles or anything else that might contain tripe. Remember, white people like exotic foods, but not enough to eat something that might be gross.

Still, if you go out to eat with white people it is a certainty that you will end up at a Thai restaurant at some point. If you are familiar with actual Thai food, you might be surprised to see these Thai-loving white people eating their food with chopsticks. Under no circumstance should you ever point out that people in Thailand use forks and spoons. It will make the white person sad that no one on their trip told them, not even that nice man who tried to sell them a prostitute.

If you know a white couple under forty who have recently gotten married, there is a 100 percent chance they were involved in a “hipster” wedding. These affairs work almost identically to regular weddings, except the groom is wearing Chuck Taylor All-Stars instead of dress shoes.

White people choose this type of wedding for the same reason they
choose almost anything: to be slightly different from their friends and to inspire at least a small amount of jealousy.

There are multiple areas in which white people can express their individuality in a wedding. Should you be invited to one of these events, the activity that will probably most surprise you is the entrance of the bride. Ever since a video surfaced of a woman doing a coordinated dance down the aisle to a pop song, the imitators have been numerous. Because when they look back on this day, white people want to be reminded that they treated it with all the gravity and seriousness of an eighth-grade dance.

But do not judge white people for this; a look at white divorce rates shows that they are doing it not out of disrespect for the institution of marriage but as a self-defense mechanism. When a serious marriage fails it’s crushing, but when a marriage that was more of an excuse for a photo shoot than a life together falls apart you move on.

Which brings us nicely to the next part of a white hipster wedding: the recording. Not only will the event be recorded via literally thousands of Hipstamatic iPhone photos of the bride and groom, but there will also be a professional photographer capturing everything. Keep in mind, though, that in white culture “professional photographer” means “family friend who needs some money.”

Of course, no matter who takes the pictures, all of the photos look as though they were taken in the 1970s or earlier. Much in the same way that white people spend a lot of money to look poor, they will also spend a lot of money on exceptionally expensive photographic equipment to get results that look like they were taken with a thirty-year-old camera.

If there is a video component to the wedding, you can be assured that within two weeks of the wedding you will be sent a link to a Vimeo page
to see a twenty-five-minute “film” that looks more like a David Lynch experiment than an actual wedding video.

Also, the importance of music cannot be overstated. If the groom is not a DJ or a music blogger, this will be his one chance to put together a legendary mix that will make his friends appreciate his taste in music. You should always compliment the groom on the music, but you should never say, “Okay, enough with this whiny stuff, when are we going to hear something you can dance to?” This is considered an insult.

If you choose to marry a white person, you should know that they will attempt to insert some or all of the aforementioned quirks into the wedding. It is essential that you tell them that your parents are insisting on a traditional affair. Even if you don’t care too much for a traditional wedding, the hassles will be far less than trying to come to an agreement with your spouse on the appropriate theme for your wedding cupcakes.

There are a lot of people who have helped to make this book and the previous book possible. Without their help this would still be a goofy blog. First off I want to thank Myles Valentin, the genius and co-founder of the site. He is, without a doubt, the world’s greatest expert on racial humor. I want to thank my wife, Jessica, for her fantastic photography and her brutal honesty in telling me when something is not funny. And of course I want to thank my whole family for serving as the greatest promotions unit on earth.

I want to thank Ron Calixto and Sean Owen for their tireless work in determining whether or not a post deserves to make it to the site or the book.

Of course, the book wouldn’t exist without Random House. I owe so much of my success to my amazing editors, Jill Schwartzman and Ryan Doherty; to my fantastic publisher, Jane Von Mehren; and to the amazing publicity team of Barbara Fillon and Ashley Gratz-Collier. Additionally, neither book would have been possible without Becca Shapiro, Beth Pearson, Erich Schoeneweiss, Liz Cosgrove, Leigh Marchant, Greg Mortimer, Thomas Pitoniak, Evan Stone, Ben Steinberg, or Marisa Vigilante.

I would be lost without my agent, Erin Malone, and the William Morris Endeavor Agency.

The book looks fantastic thanks to the line drawings of Joel Eikenberry and Jason Wilkins, who also did an amazing job on designing a run of beautiful Stuff White People Like posters from their apartment in Arkansas. Thanks also to Alex Boeckl for his great work on the Stuff White
People Like T-shirts, which have been so helpful in raising money for Children of the Night.

I want to give a special thank-you to every college and bookstore that has ever allowed me to speak within its walls.

And last but not least, I want to thank every person who reads Stuff White People Like, every person who forwards a post to their friends, every person who writes in to the site, and every person who has ever created a spin-off site.

I can’t believe I got to do this twice.

All line art by Joel Eikenberry and Jason Wilkins.

The numbers listed below refer to the entries (e.g., #1 is Ivy League).

Jill Schwartzman:
12
,
23
,
25
,
34
,
37
,
65
,
72
,
73

Matt Johannes:
23

Rebecca Shapiro:
41