The Real 'Stuff White People Like’ →
Let me be plain: I really dislike stereotyping. Whenever I see or hear one, positive or negative, it leaves me with a sour taste in my mouth, no matter who it is coming from or what their intention was in providing it.
The only exception is perhaps when they are used in comedy and I think that this is because comedy is so often about finding that grain of truth in something and verbalizing it in such a way as to make clear the irony or sadness of the situation. And I suppose I feel that stereotypes are, to a large degree, sad.
That said, I recognize that stereotyping is impossible to avoid and it’s all humans can do to avoid the grossly offensive ones.
Anyway, that disclaimer done… this article is pretty amazing. Frightening too, but mostly amazing. :P
We selected 526,000 OkCupid users at random and divided them into groups by their (self-stated) race. We then took all these people’s profile essays (280 million words in total!) and isolated the words and phrases that made each racial group’s essays statistically distinct from the others’.
For instance, it turns out that all kinds of people list sushi as one of their favorite foods. But Asians are the only group who also list sashimi; it’s a racial outlier. Similarly, as we shall see, black people are 20 times more likely than everyone else to mention soul food, whereas no foods are distinct for white people, unless you count diet coke.
