intellectual properties

SWPL: why is it funny?

thousands of people have linked to, laughed at, and discussed Stuff White People Like. enough to get the author(s) a book deal and lots of press. most people i know take it with about a pound of salt and just laugh. and i agree. if you can get past the hypocrisy and emptiness of modern life, it’s hella funny. white people - specifically middle class white people - are america’s favorite new joke. but is it really new? television sit-coms have focused on making fun of white people since TV started, and the dorkiness of white people has been a target of black comedians for decades. i think Weird Al started the current trend of focusing on this specific group of white people with his epic White and Nerdy, which lampooned everything from suburbia to wikipedia.

most of the critics of the site i know have pointed out the obvious - SWPL targets things that bourgeois white people like, and it’s really more about class than it is about race. there’s no mention of NASCAR or Kenny Chesney or monster trucks or even regular sports like the NFL. it’s about a niche culture that exists mostly only in the white upper middle class of large urban cities like SF and NYC. it completely misses the flyover states. do white readers in Oklahoma City think this site is funny, or do they wonder what the hell is being talked about?

is it somehow inappropriate to assume that ALL white people like this stuff? is it perpetuating a stereotype, or fostering alienation of those not in the upper white middle class? i don’t think so. this stereotype of the hybrid-driving-coffee-snob has been perpetuating itself, with jest, way before the Stuff site existed. see: the berkeley food pyramid, which has coffee, the #1 thing white people like, at the top. but what about the tone and approach? is it destructive to make fun of people for recycling - a habit that should be promoted, not joked about? if you’re going to make jabs at a subculture for being hypocrites, shouldn’t it be a bit more biting and a bit less “oh, those silly white people. look at all the stupid things they do” in order to make a constructive point?

honestly, i really don’t care to consider it that deeply, and while i am usually on the side that nothing is meaningless and everything has an impact, i’m sort of with the ‘get a sense of humor’ camp on this one when i hear people start to deconstruct whether this site is ‘funny’ or not. the site targets a niche culture in which i live, i get all of the references, i see the real world examples every time i go out to get lunch in berkeley, and that’s why i think it’s funny. sure, it’s trite and oversimplified, but isn’t that what makes the humor?

more broadly, why is that seeing someone else point out patterns in things that are mundane, average, and actually not that interesting so entertaining to us? Seinfeld made millions off the everyday quirks of human nature pre dot-com ; i have seen attempts to modernize his sort of humor but they all seem to unfortunately fall flat. i think XKCD is as close as we’ve got right now (of course given that i don’t have television i could definitely be missing something, but, for example, i find The Office to be completely not funny.)

recognition of commonalities in preferences and behavior is something that has always been interesting to humans and a foundation of all forms of literature and art for centuries. i think the expose of the ultra-mundane in modern life has become increasingly attractive to humans in this totally frantic and weirdly connected world in which everything seems to be compartmentalized and isolated. forms of media and art that narrow the niches into sharp focus are sort of a throwback to small town living, where knowing that you have almost everything in common with your neighbors is a comfort. for the (sub)urban dweller or Urban Tribes type, reading a site like SWPL is kind of like a gossip circle at a small town coffee shop - you can read and talk about everything everyone in your ‘community’ likes and dislikes and what they’re up to these days. SWPL isn’t pointing out anything i don’t already know, but yet i find it engaging because i relate, and it’s in a format i understand.

outside of the niche, i think the appeal comes from the plain overall oddness and uncontrollability of human nature perspective. from genetic engineering to performance enhancing steroids to birth control to mood-altering drugs to ecosystem changes, modern culture has been working hard to change, deny and subdue nature most vehemently since the industrial revolution. i think the more computerized we get, the more odd human nature and our cultures seem to be compared to the inorganic, rational, logical functioning systems we have artificially created. that was the point of the Spock character on Star Trek - as a comparison to point out how illogical humans are in their ways. the more homogenous and uniform we try to make the world, the weirder we seem by comparison. human nature is weird, and no matter how GAPified it might seem, people are doing weird things to themselves and to eachother all the time despite our best attempts at conformity.

however, there are certainly other categories of observational or cultural humor out there that i’m sure are really funny to other people, but because i don’t relate to them, they don’t make me laugh, so it’s not a surprise that SWPL doesn’t float everyone’s boat.

so, even if it’s not the smartest thing ever written and flawed in its narrow scope, the Stuff website is blatantly calling out things that people do that are so predictable, yet at the same time odd and miscalculated, and with a good enough sense of humor that it doesn’t feel totally derogatory. for the targeted demographic, because we see ourselves in it, it’s funny, even though it’s us that’s being made fun of. if you can’t laugh at yourself, what can you laugh at?

(thx to b2 for the conversation starter)