Old Wine in PBR Bottles
I think I’ve written to this effect before, but let me just cast my lot here with Kevin Drum contra Samhita Mukhopadhyay: Whether it’s particularly clever is a matter of taste—I usually find the execution as stale as the concept—but there’s clearly nothing groundbreaking about Stuff White People Like. It’s a species of well-worn yuppie/hipster satire-by-taxonomy that had been beaten into the ground well before Spy stopped publishing. The likes of The Yuppie Handbook and The Hipster Handbook have been staples of airport bookstores and remainder bins for decades. This sort of stuff is David Brooks’ bread and butter, fer chrissakes—which I think automatically disqualifies it as “edgy,” even if the headline vaguely promises some kind of racially subversive message.
Tags: Sociology
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3 responses so far ↓
1 Franklin Harris // Jul 15, 2008 at 12:28 pm
#44 Public Radio
That’s the linchpin of the whole thing. Stuff White People Like is really just Stuff NPR Listeners Like.
This would be useful information for NPR, if only NPR were a commercial radio station.
2 Zack // Jul 16, 2008 at 3:53 pm
Speaking as a member of a “younger generation,” (22) I would say that Stuff White People Like is just not funny. It is not only a really familiar joke already, it is also totally uninspired. Maybe I’m already beyond getting anything out of it, maybe if I were more pimply I’d get it. Compare to Eddie Murphy’s 1970s SNL skits. The posts could almost be put together by manatees: “white people like bangs”?
3 Sandy // Jul 19, 2008 at 8:51 pm
“That’s the linchpin of the whole thing. Stuff White People Like is really just Stuff NPR Listeners Like.”
Kinda the point. Most stereotypes only register for a small subset of the group being stereotyped.
Some people take their humor way too seriously.