On Jan. 18, 2008, Christian Lander launched a blog called "Stuff White People Like," a body of work that pokes fun at people like himself: "left-leaning, city dwelling folk."
Landers thought his friends might find it funny, too, so he forwarded it to a few people. And they forwarded it to a few people. And they forwarded it to … you know where this is going.
Within days, "Stuff White People Like" received 200 daily visitors, and within two months, the site registered 11,000,000. As of the end of September, the site racked up more than 40,000,000.
"It's ridiculous. So much has happened so fast. It still hasn't completely sunk in," says Lander, a Canadian-born 30-year-old who worked as a copywriter in Los Angeles when he launched the blog.
According to Lander, white people like all sorts of things, like '80s night, natural medicine, expensive sandwiches, not having a TV, Frisbee sports, knowing what's best for poor people, marathons, microbreweries, irony and pea coats.
By "white people," Lander says he's not referring exclusively to Caucasian Americans. Instead, he says he's writing for "affluent, well-educated (particularly in the liberal arts), left-wing (e.g. environmentally conscious, anti-corporate) and /or hipster."
The name of the blog received its share of criticism, particularly after a white supremacist group misconstrued the content and linked to the blog on their site.
"This certainly was not my intention, but I can't control who gets it and who doesn't," says Lander. "It's certainly not the first time something was misinterpreted and used against its will. Take Charles Manson or The Bible."
Allegedly, Random House offered Lander a $300,000 advance on his book, also called "Stuff White People Like," which is now a New York Times bestseller. The book and the Web site have completely different content, without overlap.
Lander, who dropped out of the Ph.D. program at Indiana University to move to Los Angeles, says "Stuff White People Like" resonates with so many people for a variety of reasons.
"It's a good conversation starter. It's an update to the yuppie idea. It's about class. It came out during an election year. It's funny. People understood it right away. Basically, a million things happened at once," says Lander.
Ten months ago, Lander started his "Stuff White People Like" list with "coffee." He says the thought came from a high school memory about white kids who clipped plastic coffee cups to their backpacks out of disapproval for earth-mean paper cups.
Early on, a few of the ideas came from Lander's friend Myles Valentin. Readers send in suggestions for the ongoing list, but Lander says he doesn't usually use them.
It's been almost a year since Lander posted the blog, so is he sick of thinking about the subject matter? At this point, does he care what white folks like or don't like?
"I'm definitely not sick of it. I am still having fun with it and really lucky that it even happened," says Lander.
At the end of August, Lander was invited to ROLFCon, a conference in San Francisco for Internet sensations and pop culture gurus.
"Everyone there was basically telling the same story," says Lander. "That they weren't expecting fame. They started doing what they do because they liked it, and because they thought it was funny, and because they thought their friends would think it was funny. Whatever else happened was a bonus."
After Lander finishes the book tour, he hopes to get a job in comedy writing.
"It would be a dream come true if the book turned into a TV show," says Lander. "Or I hope the attention and the credibility or whatever will help me find work in the comedy writing world. But I don't have any expectations. My fingers are crossed, but I'm not banking on it."
Molly Snyder started writing and publishing her work at the age 10, when her community newspaper printed her poem, "The Unicorn.” Since then, she's expanded beyond the subject of mythical creatures and written in many different mediums but, nearest and dearest to her heart, thousands of articles for OnMilwaukee.
Molly is a regular contributor to FOX6 News and numerous radio stations as well as the co-host of "Dandelions: A Podcast For Women.” She's received five Milwaukee Press Club Awards, served as the Pfister Narrator and is the Wisconsin State Fair’s Celebrity Cream Puff Eating Champion of 2019.
