Stuff White People Like - Australia Edition
Stuffwhitepeoplelike.com
I must be one of the only people who discovered this awesome blog AFTER stumbling across the book at Kinokouniya. It appeals to me on so many levels - I love its insight, sardonic writing style and like most people who read it, the reaction it incites as those who feel targeted try to argue the blog is ‘racist’ in dimwitted and defensive posted comments. (Yeah, it’s not nice having huge generalisations made about you, is it? The rest of us have had to put up with it for centuries, in anthropological, historical and even ‘scientific’ studies.) I’m guilty of quite a few of the things mentioned - see the posts on Facebook, Grammar and 80s nights. But mostly the blog is spot on for describing my white, inner-westie, trendy, do-gooder friends ie the friends I had at Fort St High when I was in High School, and the friends I made at university. Even though I finally had friends that liked a lot of the things I felt alienated for liking at my very ethnic high school, it came at a price. I felt the pressure to be more ‘white’ for the first time at university.
The blog is brilliant - my favourite posts are about indie music, study abroad, organic food and ‘diversity.’ One of the most common criticisms of the blog is that the stereotypes have more to do with class, not race as the ‘type of white person’ referred to is urbane, wealthy, socially ‘aware’ (the post on ‘awareness’ kills me every time!), university educated etc But I argue that those type of whites are the ultimate - they enshrine Europe as the pinnacle of development in terms of culture, intellectual legacy and lifestyle, which to me really just smacks of the darkly buried belief that most white people have that Europe is the most civilised place in the world, and colonies such as Australia and America just haven’t caught up yet.
I think with Australia’s endemic cultural cringe and Eurocentricism, especially in the Arts, and our incredibly awkward relationship with the black, Asian and Arab world, we should do a “Stuff White People Like - Australia Edition!” What can people come up with?
Newtown : White people like Newtown for many reasons (see SWPL posts on “Diversity” and “Gentrification”), particularly because it safely protects them from people with different musical and fashion tastes while giving them the feeling of being edgy. Newtown is a place where people can do such coveted white person things like shopping at organic food co-ops, op-shops and attend indie music gigs while eating Thai food. They get the cred of hanging out in a place that used to be a slum but now has lots of expensive cafes and chic clothing stores where you can buy clothes that look as though you got them from Vinnies for $4. As a result, Newtown is full of white people. (If you think there’s ethnic diversity in Newtown then you’ve obviously never been to Fairfield, Blacktown or Campsie.) But there’s a different KIND of diversity - Newtown is a place where people from all kinds of sub-cultures can come together and live in harmony, whether they’re Goths, punks, emos, indie, hipsters or hippies.
However, be warned that non-white subcultures such as hip-hop/rap/RnB will be met with a degree of hostility.
I remember when 50 Cent had a concert at the Enmore, and some white gay friends of mine were complaining that his fans were coming to Their suburb. Why couldn’t the promoters have scheduled the event for a more ‘appropriate’ venue? When I tried to tell them that what they were saying was “There goes the neighbourhood” instead of admitting bigotry, in full defence and denial worthy only of our good friend Keith Winschuttle, my friends went on to earnestly tell me that it had nothing to do with snobbery or parochialism, but rather that they felt Their streets were ‘less safe.’ I still didn’t understand how this was different to residents of Camden saying they weren’t racist, but they were just Concerned for Their Community. But maybe that was because I’d forgotten that these were white gay men, and therefore knew more about oppression than anyone else.
Alex was there at the time, and didn’t mention that his brother likes that kind of music and is hardly a thug. But I didn’t want to make too many enemies by implying that what really upset my gentri-friends was the idea of large groups of non-white men in their hood, when they’d spent their whole lives trying to get away from music that non-white people like. That would be rude of me.
Melbourne - White people love Melbourne because it allows them to wear cool clothes (see ‘Scarves’ and ‘Sweaters’) and it’s full of important white people institutions like chic café bars and private schools. Also, white people can pretend they’re in Europe. In fact, when a white person says that Melbourne has more ‘culture’, what they really means is that Melbourne is full of Europeans, who have real culture and trams, as opposed to Sydney which is full of scungy Asians and high-rise. White people from Melbourne are particularly fond of Melbourne, and will tell you it is more ‘diverse’ and cultured than Sydney. Don’t rock the boat by asking how much of Sydney they’ve actually seen, because when they realise they’ve only been as far out as Summer Hill they will feel bad.
I await your comments, wrath, and hopefully good humour.
I must be one of the only people who discovered this awesome blog AFTER stumbling across the book at Kinokouniya. It appeals to me on so many levels - I love its insight, sardonic writing style and like most people who read it, the reaction it incites as those who feel targeted try to argue the blog is ‘racist’ in dimwitted and defensive posted comments. (Yeah, it’s not nice having huge generalisations made about you, is it? The rest of us have had to put up with it for centuries, in anthropological, historical and even ‘scientific’ studies.) I’m guilty of quite a few of the things mentioned - see the posts on Facebook, Grammar and 80s nights. But mostly the blog is spot on for describing my white, inner-westie, trendy, do-gooder friends ie the friends I had at Fort St High when I was in High School, and the friends I made at university. Even though I finally had friends that liked a lot of the things I felt alienated for liking at my very ethnic high school, it came at a price. I felt the pressure to be more ‘white’ for the first time at university.
The blog is brilliant - my favourite posts are about indie music, study abroad, organic food and ‘diversity.’ One of the most common criticisms of the blog is that the stereotypes have more to do with class, not race as the ‘type of white person’ referred to is urbane, wealthy, socially ‘aware’ (the post on ‘awareness’ kills me every time!), university educated etc But I argue that those type of whites are the ultimate - they enshrine Europe as the pinnacle of development in terms of culture, intellectual legacy and lifestyle, which to me really just smacks of the darkly buried belief that most white people have that Europe is the most civilised place in the world, and colonies such as Australia and America just haven’t caught up yet.
I think with Australia’s endemic cultural cringe and Eurocentricism, especially in the Arts, and our incredibly awkward relationship with the black, Asian and Arab world, we should do a “Stuff White People Like - Australia Edition!” What can people come up with?
Newtown : White people like Newtown for many reasons (see SWPL posts on “Diversity” and “Gentrification”), particularly because it safely protects them from people with different musical and fashion tastes while giving them the feeling of being edgy. Newtown is a place where people can do such coveted white person things like shopping at organic food co-ops, op-shops and attend indie music gigs while eating Thai food. They get the cred of hanging out in a place that used to be a slum but now has lots of expensive cafes and chic clothing stores where you can buy clothes that look as though you got them from Vinnies for $4. As a result, Newtown is full of white people. (If you think there’s ethnic diversity in Newtown then you’ve obviously never been to Fairfield, Blacktown or Campsie.) But there’s a different KIND of diversity - Newtown is a place where people from all kinds of sub-cultures can come together and live in harmony, whether they’re Goths, punks, emos, indie, hipsters or hippies.
However, be warned that non-white subcultures such as hip-hop/rap/RnB will be met with a degree of hostility.
I remember when 50 Cent had a concert at the Enmore, and some white gay friends of mine were complaining that his fans were coming to Their suburb. Why couldn’t the promoters have scheduled the event for a more ‘appropriate’ venue? When I tried to tell them that what they were saying was “There goes the neighbourhood” instead of admitting bigotry, in full defence and denial worthy only of our good friend Keith Winschuttle, my friends went on to earnestly tell me that it had nothing to do with snobbery or parochialism, but rather that they felt Their streets were ‘less safe.’ I still didn’t understand how this was different to residents of Camden saying they weren’t racist, but they were just Concerned for Their Community. But maybe that was because I’d forgotten that these were white gay men, and therefore knew more about oppression than anyone else.
Alex was there at the time, and didn’t mention that his brother likes that kind of music and is hardly a thug. But I didn’t want to make too many enemies by implying that what really upset my gentri-friends was the idea of large groups of non-white men in their hood, when they’d spent their whole lives trying to get away from music that non-white people like. That would be rude of me.
Melbourne - White people love Melbourne because it allows them to wear cool clothes (see ‘Scarves’ and ‘Sweaters’) and it’s full of important white people institutions like chic café bars and private schools. Also, white people can pretend they’re in Europe. In fact, when a white person says that Melbourne has more ‘culture’, what they really means is that Melbourne is full of Europeans, who have real culture and trams, as opposed to Sydney which is full of scungy Asians and high-rise. White people from Melbourne are particularly fond of Melbourne, and will tell you it is more ‘diverse’ and cultured than Sydney. Don’t rock the boat by asking how much of Sydney they’ve actually seen, because when they realise they’ve only been as far out as Summer Hill they will feel bad.
I await your comments, wrath, and hopefully good humour.