It is absolutely essential that you prepare in advance for the party. As you should know by now, white parties are never just about “showing up and having fun.” They require planning, preparation, and (in the case of the best parties) costume preparation. The first step for succeeding at an Oscar party is to get your language in order. You should never say “movie,” always say “film.” You should also familiarize yourself with which categories use the term “Best” and which use “Outstanding Achievement in.” Saying something like “I hope Atonement wins Best Art Direction” is a good way to guarantee you won’t be invited next year.
We briefly touched on the importance of costumes, which can take a good white party and make it great. Oscar parties are no exception, and if you are invited to a party with a dress code, it is imperative that you arrive in costume or you’ll make everyone else feel like a jerk.
Choosing a costume is fairly simple. It is always best to dress as a character from a nominated film. So for the 2008 Oscar party it might be best to put a pillow under your shirt and come as a pregnant teenager in tribute to Juno (but by no means should anyone bring an actual pregnant teenager). Dressing up as a character from a previous Oscar-winning film is also acceptable but seen as slightly less fun.
Though it may not have been stated on the invitation, white people love to apply their party theme to the entire event, including food. Even if they have no plans for themed food, you cannot lose by bringing something that ties into the ceremony. Again using Juno as an example, if you were to come to the party with jugs of SunnyD, it would highlight your keen observation of detail when it comes to watching films. Then the white people will see that you watch films the same way they do. Also be prepared to be involved in an Oscar pool, but make sure you don’t win. If you do, just say that you were lucky.
However, all of this preparation will mean nothing if you do not act correctly during the most important part of the night: when the nominees are read for Best Foreign Film. At this point someone will get angry and state that some movie that no one has heard of was snubbed. When this happens just nod and agree. Mention that it sounds interesting and that you will watch it tomorrow, even if you have already seen it and know that it’s boring.
Basically what separates Oscar night from other party nights is that it allows white people to express themselves through their tastes in film. If they see that you are someone who agrees with a majority of their opinions, then they will be your friends and provide you with ample opportunities to sip wine and attend film festivals together.
75 Threatening to Move to Canada
White people often get frustrated with the state of their country. They do not like the president, or Congress, or the health-care system, or the illegal status of marijuana. Whenever they are presented with a situation that seems unreasonable to them, their first instinct is to threaten to move to Canada.
For example, if you are watching TV with white people and there is a piece on the news that they do not agree with, they are likely to declare, “OK, that’s it, I’m moving to Canada.”
Though they will never actually move to Canada, the act of declaring that they are willing to undertake the journey is very symbolic in white culture. It shows that their dedication to their lifestyle and beliefs is so strong that they would consider packing up their entire lives and moving to a country that is only slightly different from the one they live in now. Within white culture, it is agreed upon that if Canada had better weather it would be a perfect place.
Be aware that this information can be used quite easily to gain the trust of white people. Whenever they say, “I’m moving to Canada,” you must immediately respond with “I have relatives in Canada.” They will then expect you to tell them about how Canada has a perfect health-care system, legalized everything, and no crime. Though not true, it will reassure them that they are making the right choice by saying they want to move there. But be warned, they will refer to you in future conversations and possibly call on you to settle disputes about Canadian tax rates. So use this advice only if you plan to do some basic research.
Note: Canadian white people threaten to move to Europe.
Note: Europeans are unable to threaten to move anywhere.
76 Bottles of Water
Water seems like a fairly simple concept. You turn on the tap, put a glass underneath, and drink. Sadly, it is not that simple for white people. On the whole, they are unable to put a glass under a tap and just drink. In fact, this is such a strange concept that the City of New York had to launch a rather large PR campaign to show white people that it was actually possible to drink the water that comes out of the tap!
Up until that point, white people were consuming most of their water in the form of expensive bottles of Fiji or Evian. To this day, many white people continue to get their water in this fashion, and it is important to be aware about how your choice of water can say a lot about who you are.
Logically, you would assume that drinking the most expensive premium bottled water (Fiji and Voss) would be enough to show the world that you are too good for tap water. And a few years ago you would have been right. But lately, advanced white people have been getting very upset about all the waste that comes with drinking 15 to 20 bottles per week.
Nowadays more advanced white people have started to use sturdier, refillable bottles. But do not assume this is from the tap. Most white people need to run their water through some sort of filter (Brita or PUR) before they put it into their bottles. This allows them to feel good about using a refillable bottle, but it also makes it more complicated, which they also like.
Previously, the gold standard was the Nalgene bottle, but recent studies have shown that the plastic can leak toxins into the water. Currently, white people on the cutting edge are really into metal bottles of water with twist caps. It is recommended that you buy one of these as soon as possible. Having one will give you precious leverage over any white person who is drinking from a plastic bottle. “Oh, bottled water? Really? I mean, it’s cool, but I kind of thought you cared about the Earth.” If you see someone drinking a Fiji water you have the opportunity to go in for the kill. “Do you know that your bottle of water has a bigger carbon footprint than me? I think they were originally going to call it Aboriginal Blood but that bottle was as close as they could get. You know, legally.”
Again, this should only be used in extreme situations.
Following your confrontation, the white person is likely to have a metal bottle just like yours. If this happens, there will be an implicit pact whereby they will do favors for you provided you do not tell everyone they got their bottle after seeing yours.
77 Musical Comedy
One of the more interesting things about white people is that they love singing comedians.
This style of humor involves a person or group singing a song, but instead of being serious, the song has funny lyrics. It’s not any more complicated than that, yet white people can’t get enough of it. Weird Al Yankovic, Tenacious D, Sarah Silverman (sometimes), Flight of the Conchords, Dennis Leary, and Adam Sandler are all excellent examples of the genre.
It’s a pretty good idea, because when you have jokes that aren’t that great and music that isn’t that great, you can just mix them together to create something that will entertain white people.
So how can you use this knowledge to your advantage? If you find yourself at a corporate retreat where you have to put on a skit for the other employees in your office, it’s always a good idea to suggest doing a funny song. The rest of your group will get very excited and start work immediately on some clever lyrics. Do not worry about the music part. If you have more than two white males on your team, it is certain that one of them can play the guitar.
78 Multilingual Children
All white people want their children to speak another language. There are no exceptions. They dream about the children drifting between French and English as they bustle about the kitchen while they, as parents, read Th
e New York Times and listen to jazz.
As white people age, they start to feel more and more angry with their parents for raising them in a monolingual home. At some point in their lives most white people attempt to learn a second language and are generally unable to get past ordering in a restaurant or overpronouncing a few key words. This failure is not attributed to their lack of effort, of course, but rather their parents, who didn’t teach them a new language during their formative years.
White people believe that if they had been given French language instruction when they were younger, their lives would have turned out very differently. Instead of living in the United States, they would be living and working abroad for the United Nations or some other organization with headquarters in Switzerland or The Hague.
Generally, white people prefer their children to speak French. Advanced white people will actually spend outrageous amounts of money to send their children to a Lycée or Ecole Française. But the vast majority will abandon their dreams when they realize that they will someday need a second mortgage so their child can one day have a better study-abroad experience in France.
Languages such as German, Spanish, Swedish, or Italian are also acceptable, but are considered to be poor substitutes, especially Spanish. At the time of writing, it is considered expert-level white-person behavior to have the children speaking Asian or African languages.
There is only one way to use this information to your advantage: speaking another language means that white people are more likely to want to have children with you. It is seen as a cheaper alternative to language schools.
79 Modern Furniture
When white people envision their dream home, a key part of the fantasy involves at least one piece of furniture designed by a famous architect from the ’30s.
Architects like Mies van der Rohe and Le Corbusier designed iconic modern furniture that has inspired virtually everything made by IKEA and Design Within Reach, both of which are key suppliers of furniture to white people. As with all things, white people will do whatever it takes to secure authenticity, including paying thousands of dollars for a small piece of furniture. If they are able to acquire this prized furniture, they will forever refer to it only by the designer’s name. “I spend hours in the van der Rohe, just looking through these beautiful books of his work.”
Referring to a white person’s expensive chair as a “chair” is considered poor form and will likely result in a loss of trust and/or respect. The best strategy for avoiding this faux pas is to look for the most uncomfortable chair in a white person’s home and ask, “Who designed that?” If they say “IKEA” or “Design Within Reach,” you can call it a chair; otherwise refer to it only by the name they give you.
It should also be noted that many white people are unable to acquire this furniture, but that does not mean you cannot use this information to your advantage. In situations where you need to improve your connection with a white person, just mention how you hope to be successful enough to one day afford an original piece of furniture by (insert obscurely named architect). If they have heard of the designer they will nod in agreement; if they have not, they will also nod in agreement and make a note to look it up later.
In either case, your status will rise.
80 The Idea of Soccer
Many white people will tell you that they are very into soccer. But be careful. It’s a trap.
If you then attempt to engage them about your favorite soccer team or talk about famous moments in soccer history, you are likely to be met with blank stares. This is because white people don’t actually enjoy watching soccer. They just like telling their friends that they are into it.
In fact, the main reason white people like soccer is so they can buy a new scarf. As you may or may not know, many soccer teams issue special scarves, and white people cannot get enough of them!
Most white people choose a favorite soccer team based on either a study-abroad experience or a particularly long vacation to Europe or South America. When they return, they like to tell their friends about how great “football” is and that they are committed to “getting more into it” now that they have returned home. Some white people take this charade so far as to actually play in adult soccer leagues or attend local professional matches.
The best method for exploiting this tendency is to ask a white person who their favorite football team is and how they came to be a fan. This will allow them to tell you about their time abroad and feel as though they have impressed you with their knowledge. Once they have finished talking, it is acceptable to ask for favors.
Note: European white people actually are into soccer and are exempt from this entry. However, they are free to use it to their advantage when in North America.
81 Graduate School
Being white means to engage in a day-in, day-out struggle to prove that you are smarter than other white people. By the time they reach college, most white people are confronted with the fact that they may not be as smart as they imagined.
In coffeeshops, bars, and classes white people will engage in conversations about authors and theorists that go nowhere as both parties start rattling off progressively more obscure people until eventually one side recognizes one and claims a victory. By the time they graduate (or a year or two afterward), white people realize that they will need an edge to succeed in the cutthroat world of modern white society.
That edge is graduate school.
Though professional graduate subjects like Law and Medicine are desirable, the true ivory tower of academia is most coveted, as it imparts true, useless knowledge. The best subjects are English, History, Art History, Film, Gender Studies, [insert nationality] Studies, Classics, Philosophy, Political Science, [insert European nationality] Literature, and the ultimate: Comp. Lit. MFAs are also acceptable.
Returning to school is an opportunity to join an elite group of people who have a passion for learning that is so great they are willing to forgo low-five-figure publishing and media jobs to follow their dreams of academic glory.
Being in graduate school satisfies many white requirements for happiness. They can believe they are helping the world, complain that the government/university doesn’t support them enough, claim they are poor, feel as though they are getting smarter, act superior to other people, enjoy perpetual three-day weekends, and sleep in every day of the week!
After acquiring a master’s degree that will not increase their salary or hiring desirability, many white people will move on to a PhD program, where they will attempt to realize their dream of becoming a professor. However, by their second year they usually wake up with a hangover and realize: “I’m going to spend six years in graduate school to make $35,000 a year and live in the middle of nowhere?”
After this crisis, a white person will follow one of two paths. The first involves dropping out and moving to New York, San Francisco, or their original hometown, where they can resume the job that they left to attend graduate school. At this point, they can feel superior to everyone still in graduate school and say things like “A PhD is a testament to perseverance, not intelligence.” They can also impress their friends at parties by referencing Jacques Lacan or Slavoj Zizek in a conversation about American Idol.
The second path involves becoming a professor, moving to a small town, and telling the local residents how they are awful and uncultured.
It is important to understand that a graduate degree does not make someone smart, so do not feel intimidated. They may have read more, but in no way does that make them smarter, more competent, or more likable than you. The best thing you can do is to act impressed when a white person talks about critical theorists. This helps them reaffirm that what they learned in graduate school was important and that they are smarter than you. This makes white people easier to deal with when you get promoted ahead of them.
82 Hating Corporations
One of the more popular white-person activities of the past fifteen years has been attempting to educate ot
hers on the evils of multinational corporations. White people love nothing more than explaining to you how Wal-Mart, McDonald’s, Microsoft, or Halliburton is destroying the Earth’s cultures and resources.
While the growth of multinational corporations can be attributed to a number of complex social, economic, and political factors, many white people prefer to take the word of two trusted sources: No Logo and AdBusters.
No Logo, published in 2000, has been responsible for more white-person “enlightenment” than any book since the burning of the library at Alexandria. By reading this one magic book, white people are able to get a full grasp on the evils of multinational corporations and then regurgitate them to friends and family.
Advanced white people will supplement No Logo with a subscription to AdBusters, where they will learn how to subvert corporate culture and return it to the masses. Specifically, this means taking ads and redoing them to create a negative message about a product. Apparently the belief is that when other people see this ad, they will be hit with an epiphany that their entire existence has been a Matrix-style manufactured universe.
If you plan to engage in lengthy conversations or get high with white people it is recommended that you read No Logo or an issue of AdBusters. Failing that, it is acceptable to buy a copy to leave on your coffee table. When white people see it, they will recognize you as someone who can see through the advertising and has a proper perspective on life.
Stuff White People Like Page 8