Dubstep. Dave's Fresh Pasta. Googling Anthony Monaco. These things are not just the goings-on of a fun weekend, but the basis for a new blog by sophomore Ruth Tam called Stuff Tufts People Like.
Last spring, Tam and a few friends were talking about Stuff White People Like, a site created in 2008 by writer Christian Lander. The site spoofs the "unique" tastes of mostly young, urban, left-leaning white professionals, noting that white people like things that range from rapper Mos Def to picking their own fruit. Since the site became widly popular, Lander has published two books full of his satirical probing into white cultural tastes, and many other writers have followed suit with sites devoted to Stuff White People Don't Like, Stuff Black People Like, Stuff Gay Guys Like, etc. It was encountering these sites that encouraged Tam to start her own at Tufts.
"It's supposed to be a parody of Stuff White People Like," Tam said. "It's self-deprecating, it's irreverent, it's supposed to make fun of the stuff we see around campus. When people talk about things, I log them in the back of my mind, like how people have a crush on the Asian pizza lady in Dewick."
However novel Tam's idea was, she discovered during the planning stages that someone else had had the idea first. Will Ehrenfeld (LA '10) wrote a column for the Daily by the same name during the spring 2009 semester.
"I had no idea he wrote that column, because it was [printed] a year before I got here," Tam said. "I was worried people would think I stole the idea, but I read it, and his had a slightly political edge. I waited until he graduated to actually start posting stuff on the site."
Ehrenfeld also sees little connection between his column and the blog, other than in name. While Tam's subjects are things like the Internet, Wilderness and Goodwill, Ehrenfeld was more interested in getting a reaction from his fellow students than observing them.
"A few friends sent me the link to this blog, which I've looked at two or three times now," Ehrenfeld told the Daily in an email. "I'm not really that interested to be honest because, from my cursory look, this iteration has little of what I think was valuable about my column — pushing people's buttons, pushing the envelope a bit. It looks like this blog is a more straightforward accounting of things that people like at Tufts, and that's boring to me."
While much of the appreciation for Stuff White People Like comes from the fact that its subjects take themselves too seriously, the same can be, and is often, said of Tufts students, which Tam addresses in some of her posts.
"Some of the posts, like the ones about double majoring or studying abroad, are like, ‘Look at you overachievers,'" Tam said, "but some are like, ‘Oh, there's been a trend lately,' like dubstep."
This was also partially Ehrenfeld's motivation, especially in the writing of what became his most controversial column, "Stuff Tufts People Like: Alleging Bias," which came in the wake of the 2009 incident where violence and racial slurs were lobbed between a white male student and students in the Korean Students Association (KSA). Ehrenfeld wrote in his column that he questioned the decision of the administration and student body to label what had happened as a bias incident and that it was rather a problematic confrontation that had less to do with race than people had been saying.
"[My column] was always sort of tongue-in-cheek, meant as humor and incitement in equal measure," Ehrenfeld said. "At a certain point, unsurprisingly, certain elements of the Tufts community took issue with what I presented in the column. After the infamous KSA-frat boy bias incident, things got sort of serious. I started getting emails and Facebook messages from strangers, friends of friends, all sorts of people, asking me to explain myself. Usually the feedback I received personally was positive, but the public response was mixed, often vitriolic."
While Ehrenfeld has since graduated, this particular post and the controversy it spawned didn't necessarily leave with him.
"I remember that [his column] was a lot like Stuff White People Like, which I had read and enjoyed," senior Matt Erle said. "But I remember there was one controversial posting related to the KSA incident that a lot of people, including me, found to be questionable and not in the spirit of the Stuff White People Like blog. The difference is, in my opinion, that Stuff White People Like was sort of joking specifically about yuppies, mostly. I think bias incidents happen for people at Tufts who aren't usually white people, and [his column] was not fair at all. A lot of people are concerned about bias at Tufts and I think white people are probably the least concerned."
Erle said that he couldn't comment on similarities to Tam's blog, as he hadn't heard much about it. While the blog is of generally different content and tone, some students are still concerned about any attempt to define campus culture in a dominant way. Tam stated that this was not her goal, but it may be an inadvertent result.
"I don't write about stuff that I like, or stuff that I do, but stuff I think people will re-post and talk to their friends about," Tam said. "Some things are broad and some are really specific: like whining about Ivy League schools they didn't get into is about freshmen who don't know how lucky they are to be here yet. I could have picked a specific sector of Tufts. I could have picked international relations majors, which would have been a whole other blog, but I wanted to touch on all different kinds of people here, which means there's more to draw from."
Sophomore Lincoln Giesel expressed mixed feelings about Tam's approach.
"I agree with a lot of the stuff on the blog," he said. "It's stuff that a lot of people do like, including myself, like people argue about Dewick versus Carmichael daily. I just think the idea of attempting to make one generalization about all Tufts students is a waste of time. There are so many different types of folks at Tufts."
Sophomore Maxine Builder said that while she found the blog amusing, she also saw it as an attempt to draw a connection between Internet trends and life at Tufts that may not actually exist.
"I just think it's always funny whenever there's something that tries to go viral for Tufts, like Tufts Texts From Last Night and stuff like that — they can be funny," Builder said. "I'd say it's similar in tone to Stuff White People Like, but it's still trying to piggyback on the trend, but who doesn't want to have a cool website with thousands of hits? But Stuff Tufts People Like is well-made, well-done — it's well-written, too. I remember thinking that it actually looks professional. Even though some of it is funny, some of it does seem kind of stale, like people like bikes and spandex, like LOL, we get it."
For some Tufts students, however, Tam's blog strikes a chord with their experience, and so the effort is appreciated.
"I think they cover the issue of the day in a mildly entertaining matter," sophomore Dan Kass said. "I think life is bleak and short and any time spent laughing at ourselves is important."
