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The Real 'Stuff White People Like' 286

Posted by samzenpus from the taking-a-closer-look dept.
Here's an interesting and funny look at 526,000 OkCupid users, divided into groups by race and gender and all the the things each groups says it likes or is interested in. While it is far from being definitive, the groupings give a glimpse of what makes each culture unique. According to the results, white men like nothing better than Tom Clancy, Van Halen, and golfing.
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The Real 'Stuff White People Like' More

The Real 'Stuff White People Like'

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  • sigh (Score:2, Insightful)

    by Dyinobal ( 1427207 )
    Idle today (or yesterday and today depending on your time zone) has been awful. I mean I get it's idle but come on.

  • Nascar??? (Score:2, Insightful)

    by bobstreo ( 1320787 )

    I looked at the lists I'm sure all involved will be offended.

  • The female responses . . . (Score:5, Interesting)

    by SlappyBastard ( 961143 ) on Wednesday September 08, 2010 @11:40PM (#33516868) Homepage

    I've had a long-standing belief that the heavy preference for outdoorsy crap in women's profiles is their way of engineering the males they receive responses from. The basic idea is to frame yourself in an athletic manner, thereby driving off the lazy, the fat and the unambitious. In practice, I'd expect this to torpedo a lot video gamers, guys who live at home, geeks and low wage earners. In essence, it's a type of razor wire that kills off all the guys no woman wants to talk to.

    • Re: (Score:3, Interesting)

      by Nursie ( 632944 )

      Well, it's probably also aspirational.

      Who wouldn't like to get out side more and do outdoorsy things all the time?

      But when it comes down to it, most of us can't be bothered. The women probably want someone to help them achieve that.

      • Re:The female responses . . . (Score:5, Interesting)

        by rubies ( 962985 ) on Wednesday September 08, 2010 @11:52PM (#33516942)

        More that our external representations of ourselves rarely match the actual. Look at the crazy pictures people put on Facebook for their profiles - 40 year olds with some photo from their mid-twenties before they got fat. Listing a bunch of interests you rarely participate in (unless bumping into your dusty huffy n the garage counts as cycling).

        • Re: (Score:3, Insightful)

          by Anonymous Coward

          "Most people are other people. Their thoughts are someone else's opinions, their lives a mimicry, their passions a quotation."

          Oscar Wilde

    • a lot video gamers, guys who live at home, geeks and low wage earners.

      That's about everyone, since geeks make all the money these days.

      • Re: (Score:3, Insightful)

        by antifoidulus ( 807088 )
        No, executives make all the money while doing nothing useful(they spend more time trying to figure out how to enrich themselves than they do the company). Case in point, over the past 10 years executive pay has skyrocketed in the US while stocks are, at best, stagnant. This is why I always laugh whenever the Republicans complain about taxing the richest 10% is placing an unfair "burden" on the most "productive" people. Beyond a certain point the relationship between salary and productivity is tenacious,

    • Re: (Score:2, Funny)

      by Tablizer ( 95088 )

      outdoorsy crap in women's profiles is their way of engineering the males they receive responses from. The basic idea is to frame yourself in an athletic manner, thereby driving off the lazy, the fat and the unambitious. In practice, I'd expect this to torpedo a lot video gamers, guys who live at home, geeks

      Well, I play Tetris while water-skiing. I showed them!

    • Re:The female responses . . . (Score:5, Interesting)

      by Steauengeglase ( 512315 ) on Thursday September 09, 2010 @12:04AM (#33516996)

      I'll have to agree with that one. Some of my outdoorsey friends have had problems with women using that as a filter and then treating them like fixer-uppers. Granted they were also to blame. If she says that she enjoys fishing and camping, don't say yes when she asks you about fine dining and shopping. Just be honest.

    • Re: (Score:3, Interesting)

      by uvajed_ekil ( 914487 )
      Hmm, I think the outdoorsy shtick relates more to young women in rural/outlying areas. They may not really like riding ATVs, camping, fishing, and hiking, but they like guys who listen to songs about tractors and like ATVs and fishing. It could be more about who they are trying to attract than who they wish to exclude. I live on the edge of civilization, where all macho guys to the South and East wear cowboy hats (when they go to the country music dancing bar), claim to hunt and fish (though most of them ha

    • Most of the most ambitious (and richest) people I know are over-weight, because they got rich by putting in long hours at the office, thereby reducing the time they have for exercise.

      On the other hand, nice hard manual labour makes people fit.

      • Yep. Women want to bang the UPS guy, not the UPS guy's manager.

      • Weird! All the broken-down has-beens and losers I know are over-weight, because they put in long hours at the office, thereby reducing the time they had for exercise.

    • Geeks make low wages? I thought they decent amount of money.

      • they want their jobs market back.

        • Re: (Score:2)

          by antdude ( 79039 )

          When they are employed, man. I know some employed ones who make decent amount. They have video game consoles, big screen TV/televisions, fancy computers, nice home theaters, etc.

          • When they are employed, man.

            When I'm working I make lots of money and pay lots of taxes.

            Right now, I'm the government's bitch and I'll speak nicely of them if I want my unemployment benefits that I need while they strangle me with bureaucracy and I learn new skillz so that I can go back to making lots of money and paying lots of taxes.

    • Re: (Score:3, Insightful)

      by DavidD_CA ( 750156 )

      And in a twisted way, this is natural selection at work.

    • Like many nerds, you are over analysing (Score:5, Insightful)

      by SmallFurryCreature ( 593017 ) on Thursday September 09, 2010 @03:12AM (#33517862) Journal

      Such stuff is an ADVERTISEMENT. The woman is trying to sell herself, so she lists stuff that she thinks make her attractive to others.

      Normal people don't spend all their time thinking everything through as if it is a move in a chess game.

      Think of it as going to an exotic location on holiday just to bake in the sun. You want to world to see you as an exciting person who has seen the world, when all you really want to do is not do anything at all.

      Really, the reason nerds often do bad with women is because they overthink it all. STOP. If women were complicated, jocks wouldn't be able to deal with them.

      • Re: (Score:3, Interesting)

        by mcvos ( 645701 )

        Actually, when you're on a dating site, it's very much worth it to repel the people you're not interested in. If you seem attractive to everybody, you'll be approached by everybody, and you're in for a lot of work trying to figure out who might possibly like the real you. Instead, be honest about your bad side, and you might find someone who doesn't mind that bad side.

        Of course it's also good to be aware of your bad aspects and work on them. Nothing wrong with liking comic books (to take just one example),

        • Re: (Score:3, Insightful)

          by SlappyBastard ( 961143 )
          But, from the female end, simply posting a dating profile means being flooded. The male of our species isn't discriminating or subtle or easily discouraged. Especially online.

      • But false advertising hardly seems the answer (Score:4, Insightful)

        by Moraelin ( 679338 ) on Thursday September 09, 2010 @07:57AM (#33519216) Journal

        But false advertising hardly seems to be a way to start a relationship you'll actually enjoy.

        For a start there's the aspect that you're essentially starting your relationship with a lie. It's not a way to say "let's trust each other" in the long run. Once you're aware that she lied her ass off to land what she thinks is a prize male, what else is she lying about? It's not even a way to boost confidence, as basically if she was after a generic prize male and not after someone actually matching or anything, you're nothing more than a fungible commodity.

        But that's not even the most important part.

        The more perverse part is that it's selecting someone whose personality is pretty much guaranteed to not match hers. A guy who's actually into camping and going fishing and traveling to exotic locations, is going to want to actually do that. That's what he's interested in, and that's what makes him happy. But if she really hates those, only put those in to seem more attractive, and is actually into watching soap operas and shopping... that's not going to be all that good a match, is it? At some point down the line it's either going to mean a lot of being alone on weekends for her and whining about how men are so insensitive as to go fishing and leave her alone, while the guy is still doing his activity solo in spite of having been mistakenly thinking that he found a girl to accompany him. Or it's going to mean her freezing her ass off in a tent on some mountain and hating every minute of it, just because she lied about it before. Or various other variants of essentially not being particularly happy with what the other's actual interests are.

        On a site designed for matching interests, why not, you know, actually try to actually match interests?

        If your interests are shopping for clothes, why not put that down and maybe find a guy who's also into shopping for clothes? Granted, he'll probably be gay, but still... ;) Or at least someone who knows up front what he's getting into, and is prepared to resign to that fate.

        Essentially, I'm reminded of The Beauty And The Beast. It's apparently actually a story which can cause women to stay in an abusive relationship, because they learned that eventually they'll change the beast. (At least according to one study.) Or even essentially look for the most fashionable beast on the block, because, hey, you can change him later. Except the beast never changes, and nagging him will just get you to see a bit more of the beast part. Usually coming at high speed at you.

        In this case she's choosing to attract the kind of person which is pretty much guaranteed not to actually like the real her. It's just fishing for a different kind of beast. And if anyone is thinking that either beast will change, they're still going to have a funny surprise down the road.

        • Re: (Score:3, Funny)

          by Rogerborg ( 306625 )
          While you were typing all that, I just lied my way into dates with three banging hot chicks who are into long walks and pilates-skydiving or whatever the hell it was that I ticked. Now, which of us has fitted genes, Poindexter?
    • Lying.
      "I like cycling a lot."
      "me too!".

      So if the woman is not really cycling but used it as a filter , she is back to point zero.
  • Just saying.

    • Re: (Score:3, Insightful)

      by iammani ( 1392285 )

      Actually Subset(Science)=Subset(Statistics). Would you also like some venn diagrams with that?

      • Re: (Score:2)

        by Trepidity ( 597 )

        For bonus points, please include "math" in the diagram.

        (Unfortunately, there's no clear consensus on that one. It's interesting to look at where stats is at various universities--- sometimes it's in "math" or "applied math", other times it's in a separate dept all on its own.)

      • Oh fine. But back on context, I disagree that the statistics listed here has anything to do with science.

  • Anybody for a small wager? (Score:5, Insightful)

    by hyades1 ( 1149581 ) <hyades1@hotmail.com> on Wednesday September 08, 2010 @11:50PM (#33516922)

    I bet if the site allowed you to keep part of your profile private, with access reserved only for your buddies, a certain multi-ethnic theme would emerge. A predilection for BJ's would cross all cultural barriers and leap to number one on the list of things most guys like.

    High fives all 'round. Woot, woot!

  • as a white person... (Score:2, Insightful)

    by Anonymous Coward

    I hope we make contact with aliens soon so we can stop worrying about the color of the humans and start worrying about humans in general.

  • Assumed homogeneity (Score:3, Interesting)

    by devleopard ( 317515 ) on Wednesday September 08, 2010 @11:55PM (#33516958) Homepage

    Stereotyping is never good, but it has a higher degree of confidence based on the divergence of individual characteristics, as well as population. (For example, you say "all 17 year old black males like rap music", but you're actually looking at more than one characteristic - there typically is less divergence among economic status, geographic distance from peers, etc.. to put it bluntly, they tend to be poor and live close together)

    Among white males, this tends to be less true wider array of economic functioning (higher % of upper middle class), geographic distribution (with few exceptions, white males can *socially* live wherever they want, if they can afford it), etc. So there's no *typical* white male.

    • Bullshit. The typical white male on a dating website likes Tom Fucking Clancy because he knows the ladies dig guys who read fatass books.

      The ladies on the other hand, can discriminate Tom Fucking Clancy from Toni Fucking Morrison, so they're not impressed, and all the Tom Fucking Clancy lovers stay in web dating purgatory.

      • Well hey, if you RTFA you might also see that Heinlein is in the middle of interests as well for white males.

        Granted I realize you RTFA already.

    • Re: (Score:2)

      by oljanx ( 1318801 )
      If I follow you correctly -- your assumption is that due to their economic status black males tend to live in larger and less diverse groups than white males. And as a result they are more likely to have similar interests. Ok that makes sense. And unfortunately you are correct that statistically, white males generally find themselves in better financial situations, which does give them more flexibility when deciding where they want to live. But, last time I checked, upper middle class white males (and/o

  • Since when is "white" a culture? (Score:2, Insightful)

    by Anonymous Coward

    They can divide this up by white/black/asian/indian/etc, but they aren't dividing it up by culture. Quite often whites in America have very little in common... just like Taiwanese and Koreans have very little in common (aside from being 'asian')... or Tanzanians and Russians... T^T

    • Comment removed based on user account deletion

      • Re: (Score:2)

        by lee1026 ( 876806 )

        If race didn't exist, a study like this wouldn't be able to get results. The fact that they were able to get results suggests that some things correlate with the categorizations that they have chosen.

        • Re: (Score:3, Insightful)

          by mcvos ( 645701 )

          It's not race, it's culture. There are typical "black" and "white" subcultures in the US. Or at least subcultures where not every skin color is proportionally represented. Not every person with black or white skin identifies with those subcultures, but they will have a big impact on these kind of statistics.

          There is of course also a geek/engineering culture. From these OKCupid statistics, you can tell that a significant number of Asians and Indians (don't they also come from Asia?) identify with geeky/engin

        • I'm going to define a category consisting of all high-school dropouts in the US, plus lee1026. I expect I would be able to find that many unflattering traits are overrepresented in this group, so obviously the category is meaningful.

      • This study has it ass-backwards. If you're looking to categorize, do it by culture NOT race. To conduct a study like this is based on a false premise to begin with.

        I'm not familar with OK Cupid myself but have some experience with dating sites a few years ago.

        Race is a question which always get asked on a dating profile but I've never seen "culture" asked, sometimes nationality but thats definately not the same thing

        I think that he was simply using what was available, not what was necessarily the best divid

  • Race? (Score:4, Insightful)

    by agm ( 467017 ) on Thursday September 09, 2010 @12:01AM (#33516988)

    White is not a race and neither is black.
    Just saying.

    • Re: (Score:2)

      by mjwx ( 966435 )

      White is not a race and neither is black.

      Does Caucasian and Negroid make you feel better?

      But then again, genetically speaking Latino, Middle Eastern and Indian aren't races (being Caucasian, Caucasian and Asian respectively).

      • Re:Race? (Score:5, Interesting)

        by guyminuslife ( 1349809 ) on Thursday September 09, 2010 @01:56AM (#33517538)
        As someone who took a semester of Sociology 101 years ago, I am here to snobbishly inform you that race is a social construction and that you can divvy it up however you wish.

        (Actually, as I vaguely recall reading---I took more than just the 101 course---there's a wealth of fascinating legal history about the construction of race in this country other than the typical White/Black/Native American issues, mainly due to naturalization law. I think I remember something about Indians arguing that they were white once science caught on to the genesis, but were ruled nonwhite because they had darker skin. And a Japanese guy who argued that he was white because he had light skin, but was ruled nonwhite because...I forget. Slanty eyes, maybe.)

        • Re: (Score:2)

          by mjwx ( 966435 )

          As someone who took a semester of Sociology 101 years ago, I am here to snobbishly inform you that race is a social construction and that you can divvy it up however you wish.

          Actually, I was going for +1 pedantic hyperbole, using a pedantic example of the GGP's post to disprove the GGP's post and point out how futile it is to place "not a race" constructs around these issues, as you have pointed out.

          But seeing as we are talking about sciences.... Going back to high school level biology where there are

          • Caucasian, Mongoloid (Asian) or Negroid (African) which can be easily determined by physical evidence.

            You went to high school in the 19th century?

            • Re: (Score:2)

              by mjwx ( 966435 )

              You went to high school in the 19th century?

              No, I went to school where they still teach you actual science and critical thinking.

              • Re: (Score:3, Insightful)

                by Vintermann ( 400722 )

                They told you that too, did they? Apparently you think that if it's non-PC, it must be true and intellectually brave to believe.

          • Re: (Score:2)

            by mcvos ( 645701 )

            But seeing as we are talking about sciences.... Going back to high school level biology where there are only three distinct races, Caucasian, Mongoloid (Asian) or Negroid (African) which can be easily determined by physical evidence.

            You went to high school a really long time ago then, or you got your education from some really misinformed people. If you want to divide humanity into races based on genetics, you end up with either two races (those who left Africa, and everybody else), or dozens. The differences between Africans are far, far greater than those between Europeans and Asians, for example.

            Basing it on a single cosmetic feature like skin color (which is subject to strong evolutionary pressure, which means it can change pretty

          • I don't see how being able to determine race by examining hair samples differs significantly from being able to determine race from, you know, just looking at someone. Or being able to determine racial characteristics from DNA. It's sort of obvious that there are a variety of ways to distinguish racial groups---we, unlike Stephen Colbert, can tell. That sort of misses the point of the sociological statement. Whatever that is. Also, I'm not a big fan of that particular XKCD, mainly because he forgot to put

  • How 99.9% of women between the ages of 15-40 list themselves as bisexual. Odd.

    • Re: (Score:3, Informative)

      by PyroMosh ( 287149 )

      They didn't miss it. They covered it in a different analysis.

      REALITY: 80% of self-identified bisexuals are only interested in one gender.

      12% of women under 35 on OkCupid (and the internet in general, I'd wager) self-identify as bi. However, as you can see above, only about 1 in 4 of those women is actually into both guys and girls at the same time. I know this will come as a big letdown to the straight male browsing population: three-fourths of your fantasies are, in fact, fantasies of a fantasy. Like bi m

  • Above everything else... (Score:5, Funny)

    by Anonymous Coward on Thursday September 09, 2010 @12:15AM (#33517032)

    White people love reading lists about what white people like.

    • Re:Above everything else... (Score:5, Funny)

      by mjwx ( 966435 ) on Thursday September 09, 2010 @01:19AM (#33517370)

      White people love reading lists about what white people like.

      Actually I like reading lists about what Asian women like,

      From today I'm a simple person and mechanical engineer who enjoys noodles, cricket and basketball.

      • Re: (Score:2)

        by keeboo ( 724305 )

        Actually I like reading lists about what Asian women like,
        From today I'm a simple person and mechanical engineer who enjoys noodles, cricket and basketball.

        You're assuming asian women are necessarily after asians.
        Where I live there are many people os japanese ancestry (pre WWII immigration), and I've heard from different women of that group that they did not want anything with ethnic japanese men. And I saw many times such women with white men. - It seems that it works the same for ethnic japanese men.
        No idea why is that so.

        • Re: (Score:2)

          by mjwx ( 966435 )

          You're assuming asian women are necessarily after asians.

          You're also assuming I'm Asian.

          Where I live it's not unusual to see mixed race couples, in fact it's almost the norm.

          No idea why is that so.

          Grass is greener, what to escape some kind of cultural issues, get away from the family. Could be many reasons but for the most part mixed race couples have the same motivation as non-mixed couples, love and money.

          I see a lot of mixed race people these days, not just with mixed race white/Asian people bu

      • Re: (Score:2)

        by chrb ( 1083577 )

        From today I'm a simple person and mechanical engineer who enjoys noodles, cricket and basketball.

        And swingers. Don't forget the swingers.

      • Re: (Score:3, Funny)

        by bill_mcgonigle ( 4333 ) *

        The surprising thing for me is that apparently I *am* asian.

        OK, I'll go scurry off and read Freakonomics now..

    • No, white nerds love reading lists about... No, wait that sentence is complete.

  • the groupings give a glimpse of what makes each culture unique

    NOT TRUE. the groupings give a glimpse of what makes members each culture who would sign up for a dating website named "okcupid" unique.

    • That counts as the single most conveniently ignored fact for Christian and the rest of the Okcupid team.

      They can be great for laughs, and I've laughed at them... but I've also seen indications that they aren't just joking, and probably think they know a lot more from their half-baked statistics than they do.

  • On behalf of all white guys who don't golf, don't read Tom Clancy, and don't worship Van Halen, I offer up Cee Lo Green. [youtube.com]

  • Uhhh... (Score:4, Insightful)

    by tool462 ( 677306 ) on Thursday September 09, 2010 @02:55AM (#33517790)

    According to the results white men like nothing better than Tom Clancy, Van Halen, and golfing.

    I'm pretty sure this should be categorized under "The Wrong Kind of White People".

    • I'm thinking the lists should be called "reasons why people of different cultures remain single".

      Unfortunately, I'm wrong.

    • Re: (Score:2)

      by bgarcia ( 33222 )

      According to the results white men like nothing better than Tom Clancy, Van Halen, and golfing.

      I'm pretty sure this should be categorized under "The Wrong Kind of White People".

      Nah, it's just things that middle-aged white men like.

      Now get off my lawn, sonny!

  • I do like me some Van Halen, but golf?! I'd rather carve out my eyes with a rusty nail that play that 'sport'
  • Interesting that "White People" like red socks and NASCAR. There couldn't be a little bias here possibly, or would I really find that Italians, Norwegians, Russians, Africans and Bosnians really do have this type of interest.
  • Does slashdot have a stake in OKC or what?

  • According to the results white men like nothing better than Tom Clancy, Van Halen, and golfing.

    I'm 5 minutes in the sun away from people telling me they "loved me in the movie Powder", and I still don't like any of those.

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