Stuff White People Like - Christian Lander [9]
William S. Burroughs, Junky “Did you like Trainspotting? Yeah, well, Burroughs was doing that in 1960 with this book.” (Note: Do not bring up Naked Lunch; white people don’t even pretend to understand it.)
Jack Kerouac, On the Road “I read this book when I was sixteen years old. I would say that by the time I reached page 2, I knew I wanted to be a writer.” (Note: Advanced white people are disgusted by people who like this book.)
Chuck Palahniuk, Lullaby “You know, I’ve never even read Fight Club. I find his other works to be far more engaging.”
Nick Hornby, How to Be Good “I fell in love with Hornby when I read High Fidelity in 1995, and I think he gets better with each book. This one is my absolute favorite though.”
Jay McInerney, Bright Lights, Big City Note: This novel is written in second person (“You step outside,” etc.). This makes it very easy to test if a white person has actually read it or just watched the movie starring Michael J. Fox.
Bret Easton Ellis, American Psycho “Reading Ellis is like watching an amazingly melodramatic soap opera and then realizing that it actually taught you something at the end. I can’t tell you how much time I really spent thinking, just thinking, after reading this book.”
David Foster Wallace, Infinite Jest “Did you know that this book is more than 1,000 pages long? I read it in high school, on spring break. A thousand pages.”
Marcel Proust, Remembrance of Things Past “I hope to read this one day.” (Note: Any person who has actually read all fifteen volumes has a graduate degree in English.)
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26 Manhattan (and Now Brooklyn, Too!)
Oftentimes if you ask white people about where to travel, you will get a lot of responses. But if you ask them about New York, white people will go nuts. They love the city universally and either live there, have lived there, will live there, or want to live there.
White people like New York because it has artists, restaurants, a subway, history, diversity, plays, and other white people. It literally has everything white people need to thrive! The only thing it’s missing is nature, but Central Park is right there, and since you are walking all the time, you are outside!
If you are from New York, mention it to a white person. They will be instantly fascinated and start asking questions. When they inevitably tell you what they know about your hometown (“I know this great Italian place…”), you should respond by saying, “Man, I thought only New Yorkers knew about that spot.”
Another secret fact about white people: if you are in a group setting and the topic of New York City comes up, find the highest-ranking white person and say, “Oh, are you from New York?” To them, this means you are calling them cultured, cool, and urban. They will respond with something like, “Oh, well, I’ve spent a lot of time there” or “I lived there for three months.” You will have instantly become popular.
27 Marathons
In life, there are certain milestones of physical activity that can define you: a 40-yard dash in under 5 seconds, a 40-inch vertical leap, and so forth. To a white person, the absolute pinnacle of fitness is to run a marathon. Not to win, just to run.
White people will train for months, telling everyone who will listen about how they get up early in the morning, how they run when it rains, how it makes them feel so great and gives them energy.
When they finish the marathon, they will generally take a photo of themselves in a pair of New Balance sneakers and running shorts, with their marathon number held in both hands over their head in triumph. (Seriously, look it up, this is universal.)
They will then set goals like running in the Boston Marathon or the New York City Marathon.
If you find yourself in a situation where a white person is talking about a marathon, you must be impressed or you will lose favor with them immediately. Running for a certain length of time on a specific day is a very important thing to a white person and should not be demeaned.
Also worth noting: the