Author talks about ‘stuff white people like’

IU Ph.D. student dropout Christian Lander explained to an audience how a blog could turn into a best-selling book in five months.

Lander, a Toronto native and author of The New York Times bestseller “Stuff White People Like,” spoke to an audience Sunday night at the Whittenberger Auditorium in the Indiana Memorial Union about his journey to fame with his blog and now book.

Lander’s book contains blurbs about different things in which white people think they alone have interest, such as coffee, veganism, marijuana and Lander’s personal favorite, bicycles.

Lander, who is white, said the idea came to him for a blog during an instant messaging conversation with his friend Myles Valentin, a Filipino.

Lander said he and Valentin were talking about their love for the TV show “The Wire,” and Valentin said he didn’t trust any white person who did not watch the show.

So what were all these people doing instead?

On Jan. 18, 2008, with no intention of gaining fame, Lander created a blog to address that question.

“It never crossed the back of my mind that it would ever happen,” Lander said.

He kept blogging, and when he came to a realization that his idea was actually funny, he sent his blog to 25 of his friends. The blog quickly became more popular, and by the third week, Lander said, the blog had 1,000 hits per day.

The hit numbers kept rising for the blog, and only a month after the original blog was created, Lander got calls from literary agents in New York asking for a book contract.
Lander said the book deal with Random House was in place by March, and the book was published in July.

It became a New York Times best seller within weeks.

“Ferris Bueller’s right,” Lander said. “Life moves pretty fast.”

Lander talked about his experience on Late Night with Conan O’Brien. He recalled being shocked to be in the same room as Jerry O’Connell. O’Connell thought everything that Lander said on the show was hilarious, and, to Lander’s delight, introduced him to his parents and asked him out to a future dinner.

Lander said he receives hate mail every day and that many people do not find his blog funny, but he said he is not fazed.

“The fact that people felt strongly meant that I was doing something right,” Lander said. “I really believed in this. I had a lot to say about white people.”

Lander said the blog is popular because it creates conversation and brings to light the idea that white people think they’re unique individuals when they are actually their own class of people.

“I can pidgeonhole them into this narrow set of taste,” Lander said.

Lander then read three of his blurbs: international travel, indie music and bicycles. Lander said some of his inspiration in Bloomington came from The Runcible Spoon and dive bars.

Audience member and graduate student Isaac Kinsey said he thought Lander was hilarious.

“It strikes up good conversation,” he said.

Junior Renee Szostak, a communication and culture major, said Lander was inspirational because Lander studied communication and culture at IU and that
Lander’s success gave her hope as a student.

“I have this recurring nightmare that I will wake up as a copywriter,” Szostak said. “But maybe it won’t happen now. It’s inspirational to see somebody like me become successful.”

Lander’s advice for future bloggers: Keep the concept simple.

“Do it because you really love it,” he said.

Lander is proud of his work and said he plans to return to a desk job one day when all the hype dies down – he even has an offer for a potential TV series – but for now, he is enjoying the limelight.

“All my dreams came true,” Lander said. “I’ve always wanted to write a book.”