Whiter Shades of Pale (5 page)

When you think about tattoo parlors, it conjures up images of sailors, gang members, hepatitis, and spring break. All of these are things that white people do not like, except for sailors, but that only counts if they were sailing before Vietnam. Yet in spite of this, more and more of the right white people are getting tattoos.

But do not make the mistake of thinking that white people like all tattoos. In fact, they loathe a great number of them, including

For a white person, getting a tattoo is a major step in their life since it presupposes that their taste at this given moment is good enough to sustain them for the rest of their lives. Needless to say, this is a near impossible task. This is why you don’t see a lot of white people with R.E.M. or Strokes tattoos.

White people can only get tattoos of the only thing that they are guaranteed to like in five years; therefore, it is a very short list. But there
are two things that will never go out of style with white people: humor and irony.

An ironic/funny tat can come in many forms: a piece of bacon, old Nintendo characters, mustaches on the side of their finger, or Asian characters that say something funny and self-aware like “dim sum,” “chicken fried rice,” or “I can’t read Chinese.”

The Chinese or Japanese character is an interesting case study about the dangers of getting a tattoo with a personal meaning. You see, about fifteen years ago these were considered to be acceptable. Then the wrong kind of white people started getting tattoos of sentences like “Trust no one” or single words like
beauty, truth
, or
endurance
. To make a more modern analogy, it would be like the Arcade Fire being featured on a Jock Jams CD.

White people learned their lesson.

A white person with the right kind of tattoo is generally very popular within the white community, since they have shown a demonstrated commitment to irony, humor, and in some cases, self-deprecation.

If you find yourself competing socially with one of them, there are a few things you can do in order to defeat them.

Your saving grace is the fact that white people not only enjoy getting funny/ironic tattoos, but they really enjoy talking about them, too! Therefore, it is essential that you already have two or three clever tattoo ideas ready to drop into a conversation.

“Yeah, that finger mustache is pretty cool, but a lot of people have it. [Note: This is the meanest thing you can say.] I’m thinking about getting a tattoo of a doughnut around my belly button or a picture of a hamburger on my forearm so I can order food when I’m in Japan.”

Your conversation partner will likely then tell you about the clever tattoos that they have been thinking of, and before you know it they will have forgotten all about your competition.

Since all white people consider themselves to be “creative,” they are constantly in need of products and accessories that will allow them to capture their thoughts in a stylish manner. One of the more popular products in recent years has been the Moleskine notebook.

This particular type of notebook is very expensive and was quite popular with writers and artists in the olden days. Needless to say, these are two qualities that are highly coveted in the white community. In fact, it’s a good rule of thumb to know that white people like anything that old writers and artists liked: typewriters, journals, suicide, heroin, and trains are just a few examples.

Much like virtually everything else that white people like, these notebooks are considerably more expensive yet provide no additional functionality over regular notebooks that cost a dollar. Thankfully, since white people only keep their most original and creative ideas in the Moleskine, many of them will only be required to purchase one per lifetime.

But the growing popularity of these little journals is not without its own set of problems. One of the strangest side effects has been the puzzling situation whereby a white person will sit in an independent coffeeshop with a Moleskine notebook resting on top of an Apple laptop. You might wonder why they need so many devices to write down thoughts. Well, if a white person has a great idea, they write it by hand. If they merely have a good idea, it goes into the computer.

Not only does this help them keep their thoughts organized, but it serves as a signal to the other white people in the shop that the owner of
both instruments is truly creative. It screams: “I’m not using my computer to check email and read celebrity gossip, I’m using it to create art. Please ask me about it.”

So when you see a white person with one of these notebooks, you should always ask them about what sort of projects they are working on in their free time. But you should never ask to actually see the notebook lest you ask the question “How are you going to make a novel out of five phone numbers and a grocery list?”

Bicycle messengers are for some reason among the most respected people in the white community. It is unknown if this is due to a particular love of danger, the ability to wear shorts and tights at the same time, or a dedication to delivering packages that makes them so enviable. Whatever the reason, white people love them and try to emulate them as much as possible.

The first trend to emerge out of this fascination was the rise in fixed-gear bicycles. Often ridden by messengers because of their low maintenance and simplicity, they were quickly adopted by white people around the globe. But not every white person wants a bicycle. There had to be another, less dangerous way to get in on this trend. Thankfully, there was the messenger bag.

Wearing one of these bags is a bold statement that you might ride a bicycle and that you like to carry things diagonally. Additionally, the type of messenger bag you wear says a lot about you. Generally the most popular brands are
Timbuk2 and Chrome. Wearing these will get a reasonable level of acceptance, but to go to the next level you need to purchase a bag that is made entirely out of recycled materials.

For some reason, the coolest white people have bags that click together with seat-belt buckles.

You would think that these bags would make for an easy pickup line with white males: “Do you have a package for me?” But that is most likely to make them very uncomfortable as they will have to admit that they are not a real bike courier.

Instead, the best thing you can do with a white person and a messenger bag is to try to get them to play a type of urban midway game called Guess What’s in This Bag. To play, all you need to do is find a white person with a messenger bag and at least $10. Simply propose that if you can tell them the contents of their bag without looking, you will get that $10; if you fail to guess the contents, you will tell them about an off-menu item at a nearby ethnic restaurant. When they agree, simply close your eyes, hold your forehead like you are concentrating, and say the following: “Mac laptop, Moleskine notebook, some sort of sandwich, and a book.”

And if you are a bag designer looking for ways to improve the messenger bag for white people, simply craft one as it is now but make a pocket for a Pabst Tall Boy and a specialized hummus cooler pocket.

When you get far along enough in your friendship with white people, they are probably going to ask some questions about your life and your tastes in music. Regardless of which angle you are playing with white people (world music, hip-hop, jazz), it’s always a good idea to familiarize yourself with punk rock.

It is confirmed that all white people believe that punk music from 1977 to 1980 was important. Though this era only lasted three years,
white people have been trying to reenact it during their teenage years for almost three decades.

All white people have had at least a brief period in their life when they wore Doc Martens boots and only listened to punk music. Or at the very least, they annoyed their parents by playing a Sex Pistols album really loud.

What makes the punk phase so interesting is that white people never have any shame about looking back on it. While they look back with regret at virtually every clothing choice and haircut from ages fourteen to twenty-two, they always look back on their punk phase with fondness. In fact, white people will often remind others about this phase by making their children wear a CBGB or Ramones T-shirt to soccer practice.

Once again you are encouraged to completely suppress the natural urge to point out the inherent hypocrisy in a white person purchasing a kid’s size punk rock T-shirt at a high-end children’s clothing store to show off that they are a rock-and-roll parent. It would be so easy to just say, “Remember that Buzzcocks song about how difficult it is to buy art big enough to go behind the sofa?” To which they will respond, “No,” and you can come back with a satisfying “Exactly.” Fight the urge! There is nothing to be gained. Except for maybe impressing slightly younger white people.

For some reason, white people almost always believe that life was better 150 years ago. Life was simpler, there was less pollution, we ate a more natural diet, and we weren’t distracted
by all this technology. Of course, they tend to overlook things like racism, disease, poverty, and grueling labor conditions. But then again, these things have long overlooked white people, so it sort of makes sense. Therefore it should come as no surprise that white people have jumped all over the trend of drinking raw milk, or milk that comes directly from the udder of a cow.

Around 150 years ago, we all drank milk this way and as a result we had thriving communities of people with diphtheria and typhoid fever. Then Louis Pasteur came along and fixed the whole thing with pasteurization and those diseases were greatly reduced. But if we’ve learned one thing from white people, it’s that the prospect of a life-threatening disease should not stand in the way of something that is potentially delicious. Even the fact that this is an illegal way to consume milk has not stopped white people from forming small underground collectives where they work under the shadow of night to get their fix of raw milk directly from the farm. As a result, the only way to tell the difference between a group of heroin addicts waiting for their fix and a group of raw milk devotees is the presence of a stroller and a slightly better-condition North Face jacket.