The first time I went to Ikea, I bought a book at the Woodfield Mall called “Stuff White People Like.” It is a comedic book that basically details what it is to be a young white modern American. And while I haven’t had a lot of time to read with work being really busy of late, I have been able to read a sliver or two of the book in any particular time. Recently, I finally finished the book and thought I would post my thoughts on it.
Perhaps it is actually fitting that I talk about this book in particular on a blog. The book first got its start as a blog where the author started a list for his friends of things he saw everyday that he thought was funny that white people liked. Now, visiting the website for this book, I find it kind of odd actually that they don’t coincide with the book. The book details 150 items that white people like. Currently the last post is #122 Moleskin Notebooks which wasn’t in the book either as moleskin notebooks or as #122. So the correspondance with the site is odd at best, unless of course he archives previous book entries and starts over for perhaps book #2.
[amazonify]0812979915:left[/amazonify]At any rate, I did find “Stuff White People Like” fairly enjoyable. At one point in the middle a lot of his descriptions started feeling REALLY repetitive. The main theme that I got tired of was the “white people like [insert ethnic thing] because they feel guilty” theme. I thought the joke worked well for a little bit, such as with “Black Friends.” But towards the middle of the book, it seemed that a majority had this in it somewhere, even some that didn’t make a lot of sense. I do think that white people like things because of the ethnic guilt, but there were too many entries in too short of a span. I think he should have spread these out throughout the book a little better.
The comedy in the book really fell into the “it’s funny because it’s true” mold. Throughout it, it was astonishing to me how many of the entries described me. Even worse, many of the entries that I wasn’t interested in sparked an interest in. This is largely due to me not having heard of many of them before. For instance, I often found myself looking through the lists of DVDs and MP3s that they showed to see what I had, and amongst them I saw other titles that I didn’t have and decided I should try to give them a try. It is quite funny to me that this book that made fun of people like me also became a source of things I might like.
Overall, I think it is a pretty funny book and worth a read through. I doubt I will really page through it ever again, but it was worth the time I put into it definitely.