The Real 'Stuff White People Like'

Here's an interesting and funny look at 526,000 OkCupid users, divided into groups by race and gender and all the the things each groups says it likes or is interested in. While it is far from being definitive, the groupings give a glimpse of what makes each culture unique. According to the results, white men like nothing better than Tom Clancy, Van Halen, and golfing.

Comments

The female responses . . .

[SlappyBastard]

I've had a long-standing belief that the heavy preference for outdoorsy crap in women's profiles is their way of engineering the males they receive responses from. The basic idea is to frame yourself in an athletic manner, thereby driving off the lazy, the fat and the unambitious. In practice, I'd expect this to torpedo a lot video gamers, guys who live at home, geeks and low wage earners. In essence, it's a type of razor wire that kills off all the guys no woman wants to talk to.

Re:The female responses . . .

[rubies]

More that our external representations of ourselves rarely match the actual. Look at the crazy pictures people put on Facebook for their profiles - 40 year olds with some photo from their mid-twenties before they got fat. Listing a bunch of interests you rarely participate in (unless bumping into your dusty huffy n the garage counts as cycling).

Re:The female responses . . .

[Steauengeglase]

I'll have to agree with that one. Some of my outdoorsey friends have had problems with women using that as a filter and then treating them like fixer-uppers. Granted they were also to blame. If she says that she enjoys fishing and camping, don't say yes when she asks you about fine dining and shopping. Just be honest.

Re:Race?

[guyminuslife]

As someone who took a semester of Sociology 101 years ago, I am here to snobbishly inform you that race is a social construction and that you can divvy it up however you wish.

(Actually, as I vaguely recall reading---I took more than just the 101 course---there's a wealth of fascinating legal history about the construction of race in this country other than the typical White/Black/Native American issues, mainly due to naturalization law. I think I remember something about Indians arguing that they were white once science caught on to the genesis, but were ruled nonwhite because they had darker skin. And a Japanese guy who argued that he was white because he had light skin, but was ruled nonwhite because...I forget. Slanty eyes, maybe.)