Fuck this

OK.  I’ve been sitting uncomfortably on a reeking pile of truth for the past week, and now I’m going to dump it right on your face.

Many of you seem to believe this site is a parody of Christian Lander’s popular blog-turned-best-selling-book, Stuff White People Like. Wrong.

Flashback: Summer.  2003.  Toronto.  Christian Lander and I are lounging on the patio at the Blue Moon Taqueria eating a chicken burrito and sipping Modelo.  That’s right: one chicken burrito between the two of us.  At this point in our lives we’re tight like that and watching our carb intake to boot.

ME: We should make a blog about stuff people like.

CHRISTIAN: People in general or, like, a specific subset of people?

ME: Just people in general.  That way it will appeal to everyone and promote unity.

CHRISTIAN: That sounds like a great idea.

ME: Just don’t steal it.

CHRISTIAN:  I would never betray you.  Now pass that burrito, you big lug!

As you can see:  Christian did betray me.  Not only did he steal my idea to make a blog about stuff people enjoy, but he made it worse, by limiting his target audience to white people.  He gets a $350,000 advance and New York Times best-seller, and I am here in my underwear posting to a blog which everyone thinks is a parody of his blog.  I’m embarassed, my Mom’s embarassed, and Christian YOU STILL OWE ME FOR HALF OF THAT FUCKING BURRITO.

#7 - The Feeling That There is Some Sort of Point to Their Existence

(I can’t believe it took me so long to get to this one!)

Nietzsche knew that the universe was a howling whirl of impenetrable chaos, but don’t try telling people that.  The one thing people love more than anything in the world is feeling that their existence has some sort of point.

People get a real kick out of feeling that they are more than just mobile bags of flesh ambling over the earth, sustaining their failing bodies and swapping fluids with one another until they die and melt back into the organic soup from which they were formed. It makes them feel superior.

It is a known fact that people get such a kick out of feeling that their lives mean something that often they will actually invent things that suggest this meaning.  People like to call these things “ideas.”  There is nothing a person likes to do better than gather in a group with other people and talk about ideas that make them feel that their life is more than just a brief crack of brightness between two endless nights.  People call these things “dinner parties” or “cultures.”

Some ideas that are popular with people hoping to feel that their life has meaning are:  Love, God, Honor, Wealth, Glory, Charity, Country, Beauty, Power.  It is a common myth among people that believing in these ideas actually makes their lives not pointless.

You might think that with so many ideas out there to choose from, people would be easily satisfied.  But no:  People are very picky when it comes to deciding on the point of their life.  Sometimes a person will even spend their entire life thinking about it and even then still not reach a decision.

If you see a person with their head in their hands weeping uncontrollably and shaking their fist while screaming “DUST! WE ARE ALL BUT DUST!”, there is a good chance that this person is so picky that they don’t like any of the ideas.

If this person is at a party and you want to make friends with them, a good thing to do would be to kill them.  They won’t care.

#6 - Adequate Shelter

One thing you should know about people is that they are affected negatively by long exposure to things such as cold, rain, sleet, freezing rain and sun. Many things, such as rocks, are also negatively affected by the elements—but people actually care about being negatively affected by things.  So when people are looking to relax, they almost always seek some sort of shelter from the elements. People go crazy for this kind of stuff.

People like shelters so much that if they find one they like they will practically live in it. A lot of times they will even invite other people they know into the shelter, like their families. A person will sometimes even build their own shelter, believing that it offers superior protection from things like bears. People do not like bears. Bears are the antithesis of everything people stand for.

See, bears cause pain, and people do not like pain. In fact, people go out of their way to avoid pain. So people will often make an effort not to be in the same general area as a bear. They love not being around a bear because it makes them feel superior when they tell their friends things like, “Hey, don’t go over near that bear.”

Although these very same people also sometimes like to get very close to a bear if they feel like they could kill it and eat it. (People like food.)  In these cases, being close to a bear actually makes them feel superior. On second thought, then, people might have a love-hate relationship with bears.  But people defintiely have a love-love relationship with feeling superior

If you meet a person out on a dark, windswept plain and they are naked and shivering in the midst of a driving rain and being chased by bears, an easy way to make friends with them is to build them a protective shelter, like some sort of a lean-to. Maybe you could feed them some bear meat. Then just watch as the person curls into the fetal position, mumbles deliriously to an unseen companion for twenty minutes, then dies from hypothermia and/or bear wounds.

Another thing you should know about people is that they die and vanish forever if their bodies have been too negatively affected by things.

#5 – The Earth’s Atmosphere

78.08% nitrogen, 20.95% oxygen, 0.93% argon, 0.038% carbon dioxide, 100% Thing People Like. It is a commonly held fact that people love the atmosphere more than their own children.  You can’t go anywhere these days without seeing some person or another sucking down the atmosphere like it was air.

Many things on the Earth, like rocks, have never even taken a single breath of the atmosphere.  People, on the other hand, swear by it.  You will frequently overhear people talking about how they would “literally die” without the Earth’s 50-mile thick atmosphere separating them from the harsh vacuum of space.

If you want to make a person feel good simply walk up to them and say, “Aren’t you glad the chemical composition of Earth’s atmosphere is precisely compatible with carbon-based life?”  The person will almost certainly reply, “Yes.”  They may even give you a high-five, provided they are not a paraplegic. This is equally true in Portland, Oregon.

#4 - Food

Throughout the world you can find many things that do not enjoy food, such as rocks.  People, on the other hand, basically organize their life around securing and consuming stores of food.

Ask any person what they like about food and they will have a whole list memorized in their head, ranging from the smell of food to, “It provides me with the essential amino acids, vitamins and minerals I need to live.”  If pressed, many people even admit to enjoying the taste of food.

Yes, there is no doubt people love food.  If you make the mistake of taking away all of a person’s food, watch out! One can bet a pretty penny on the fact that, faced with the choice of not having food for a long time or spending large amounts of their income and effort on securing food, people will choose food over slow starvation any day of the week—especially if they have children.  And the funny thing is:  the less food people have, the more they want it!

One other thing is that people especially like food not to be poison.  People will even pay as much as $2 extra to insure their food is not made of poison, and that when they eat it they won’t die.