Christian Rudder Examines “The REAL ‘Stuff White People Like’”

According to StuffWhitePeopleLike.com, white people are into:

• Ray-Bans

• The Ivy League

• Dinner parties

• Studying abroad

• Expensive sandwiches

• Whole Foods

And according to OkCupid's newest study, " The REAL 'Stuff White People Like,'" white people are also fond of the Red Sox, NASCAR, boating, and proving how country they are.

Prompted by questions like "What is it that makes a culture unique?" and "What tastes, interests, and concepts define an ethnic group?" and even "Is there any way to make fun of other races in public and get away with it?" the research team at OkCupid examined the profiles of 526,000 randomly-selected users and separated them into groups based on their self-stated race. They then analyzed the text in each profile, and "isolated the words and phrases that made each racial group's essays statistically distinct from the others." Using the data they collected, the OkCupid team attempted to uncover "the interests, hobbies, tastes, and self-descriptions that are specially important to each racial group, as determined by the words of the group itself."

Their findings are divided not only by ethnicity, but also by sex, and are arranged in the form of word clouds that indicate the frequency with which each word or phrase is used. White men, it appears, are big fans of the works of Tom Clancy - his name was the phrase most frequently used in their profiles, followed by "Van Halen," "golfing," "Harley Davidson," and "Ghostbusters." "The mind of the white man," writer Christian Rudder cheekily comments, "is the world's greatest sausagefest.....there is not even one vaguely feminine thing on his list, and as far as broad categories go we have: sweaty guitar rock, bro-on-bro comedies, things with engines, and dystopias." As you might expect, movies, television, sports, and motorized vehicles all feature prominently in the white man's word cloud.

White women are also interested in sports and motorized vehicles, it seems - 3 of their top 5 terms are "the Red Sox," "boating," and "NASCAR" (in fact, NASCAR appears higher on the women's list then on the men's list!). Chick-flicks, music (especially country), exercise, and make up and clothing make appearances on the list as well. "It's also amazing," Rudder notes, "the extent to which their list shows a pastoral or rural self-mythology: bonfires, boating, horseback riding, thunderstorms."

Next, Rudder examines the "stuff black people like." Black men showed concern for their appearance and attitude, using phrases like "I am cool," "tall, dark, and handsome," "calm," and "laid-back guy" to describe themselves. Black women exhibited strong interest in music ("gospel," "Alicia Keys," and "neo soul" were the 4th, 5th, and 6th most-used terms, respectively), church, and The Color Purple, which was the second most frequently used phrase.

The number one term on the lists for both men and women is "soul food," which appears to be very important for both sexes but even more so for women. Soul food and black women, Rudder mentions, was the single strongest phrase/group pair that the OkCupid researchers discovered. Religion also appears powerfully in both lists. Though it was not among the top phrases for any other race, 13 of the top 50 phrases were religious for black men and women, meaning that "black people are more than twice as likely than average to mention their faith in their profiles."

Up next: we review Rudder's data on the stuff liked by Latinos, Asians, Indians, Middle Easterners, and Pacific Islanders, and evaluate the accuracy of OkCupid's study as a whole.