This time last year, when Christian Lander launched his satirical comedy blog "Stuff White People Like" (stuffwhitepeoplelike.com), he was a Ph.D. dropout working as a copywriter in Los Angeles. But just over a year later, he has gone through a warp-speed transformation.
His deadpan Web presence, which lampoons the likes of NPR, authentic sushi and yoga, became such an unlikely hit so quickly that by March, Lander was inundated with calls from literary agents. A lucrative publishing deal soon followed.
Currently promoting his best-selling "Stuff White People Like" (Random House; $14) book on a tour that's taken him from a talk at Google's world headquarters to late-night banter with Conan O'Brien and Carson Daly, Lander will stop in Atlanta on Thursday for an appearance at the Euclid Avenue Yacht Club.
The hip watering hole should be the perfect venue for his views on the quirks of contemporary white culture, including such favorite topics as Microbreweries (blog post No. 23), Gentrification (No. 73) and Dive Bars (No. 148, explained as "a place with cheap drinks and minimal decoration that was formerly frequented by those who dislike white people"). "Usually, I invite everybody at the reading out for drinks afterwards, anyway," Lander says, "so this just saves a step."
Q: The genesis of the blog was your instant messaging with a friend about how much you both liked "The Wire" (No. 85). But what was the eureka moment when you said, "I can make something more — like maybe some dough — out of this thing"?
A: When the agents started calling. Because my old job was working at an interactive agency, I was really familiar with how the Internet operates. I was really aware of how difficult it is to make money if you're not doing something like porno. So I was only expecting to be a blip on the pop culture radar.
Q: Of course, controversy never hurts, but there were nasty charges that your site was racist, and at least one critic accused you of being snarky rather than satirical. What was your reaction?
A: I spent four years in liberal arts graduate school, where you could offend somebody by bringing a banana to class. From that experience, I became hypersensitive to how people get offended. I knew the criticism would come. None of it really got to me. The criticism that bothered me was when people would say that I wasn't funny or that I was terrible writer.
Q: Do you think it's funny that one of the things white people really like now is "Stuff White People Like"?
A: People send that suggestion into the Web site all the time, but I'll never put it in. I spent too much time talking about meta in graduate school to ever go that far. I do have a post in the book on self-deprecating humor, and how important that is for white people. It's pretty funny, because in the current world of being white, you pretty much hate everyone who's exactly like you that you don't know. I'll see some guy in L.A. and hate him because he has the same shirt and bike and likes the same music as me.
Q: In the back of the book, there's a "How White Are You?" test in the form of a checklist, with scores ranging from 10 percent to 100 percent. So, truthfully, what's your score?
A: As I've said, I literally wrote the book on the subject, so I get bonus points. Really, my score is off the charts. The only thing I don't like in any form is outdoor stuff. I love urban biking, but I don't like nature — at all.
Q: What's on the "Stuff White People Like" radar now?
A: I just posted one on Taking a Year Off. Another one that's coming up is Ironic Tattoos — the only thing that white people can be assured that they'll still like in five years.
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