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Good 'Stuff White People Like" from Christian Lander

BY MINDY FARABEE | Los Angeles Times

August 10, 2008

Two white people walk into a bar, a badly lit Culver City, Calif., saloon called the Backstage whose interior design could be summed up as one pool table, a no-frills photo booth and some scattered neon. Blondie and the Rolling Stones belt out of the stereo; there's $3 Newcastle on tap. In other words, welcome to No.148 of 150 things white people like: dive bars.

"If you want to say I was planning that far ahead, that's great," said Christian Lander, resident white person behind the ridiculously popular blog Stuff White People Like, a

snarky bit of grass-roots anthropology that recently transmuted into a rumored $300,000 book deal. "But I just like this place. I like the darkness. I don't like overpaying for drinks. I'm not a very picky bar patron."

Now "Stuff White People Like: A Definitive Guide to the Unique Taste of Millions" is a book (Random House, $14 paper), and if it is a joke - and really, it's filled with bons mots such as "For those of you who don't know, a dive bar is a place with cheap drinks and minimal decoration that was formerly frequented by those who dislike white people" - then the joke's on Lander.

Wearing jeans and a faded navy UC Berkeley T-shirt (No.84), procured from Goodwill (No. 49), and thin, black angular frames (No. 140), Lander sidled up to the Backstage on his bike - that is cycle, not motor, aka No. 61. Though it must be said that, born and raised in Canada, Lander at no point during our early evening together threatened to move back there (No. 75).

"It's me making fun of myself the whole way through," Lander said of the blog turned book. "I'm not implying I'm above any of this. I like all the stuff in the book.

"Some people ... comment, 'I'm not sure if this is a joke or not.' Every time I'm like, 'Really? You really can't tell? Good luck with life.'" Lander said.

Though not a raging conservative ("I'm Canadian. How right wing can I get?") and clearly not a rabid liberal, Lander is not devoid of political leanings. "I was a little nervous because post No. 8 was Barack Obama, and this was before he won the nomination, when the book was getting done. I was like, 'Please, please, please let him win. ... Keep this book relevant,'" he said.

Lander and his wife, Jess, settled down in Los Angeles two years ago, after meeting in graduate school - where Lander was angling for a doctorate in film - then dropping out together. At the time, he had pipe dreams of making it big as a comedy writer; until recently he worked as a copywriter at an interactive ad agency. "White People" was born over an IM chat about "The Wire" (No. 85) between Lander and fellow Canadian Myles Valentin.

As far as conducting field research, Lander didn't need to so much as lift a Google. "It's a weird thing where you just know," he said. "I'd think about my friends from McGill University and grad school. Would they like this? If the answer is yes, in it goes."

Though he and Valentin started it as a blog, he hasn't got a particular love for the medium. "People were obsessed with telling me [the blog has] jumped the shark. For every single post I'd put up. Part of me would want to be like, 'It's your right to say whatever you want,' but, dude, I get it. You've said this about the last 15 posts. Enough. And so I stopped reading the comments entirely months ago."

As for what's next, Lander concedes he's not a

novelist, and the blog's got a built-in expiration date, he believes: "When I run out of stuff, I'll let it go." A fan of Cartoon Network's Adult Swim, as well as network shows such as "30 Rock," "The Office" and "'Conan,' obviously," Lander would rather segue into television.

But if that doesn't happen, he's prepared. "I'll go back to interactive advertising," he said, shrugging.