Stuff Indian People Like

For the uninformed readers for whom this title doesn’t ring a bell (and that would probably mean all of you who have a life besides the internet), let me educate you on the latest web phenomenon. A certain site called ‘Stuff White People Like‘ (SWPL) created on Jan 18th, 2008 and updated regularly since then, has achieved instant success with millions of hits per week and tons of publicity both in the online and the real world. The author has even gone on to receive a lucrative book deal from Random House, for a book by the same name.

Simply put, the site is a humorous and satirical view of a stereotypical liberal white person, and lists everything – ranging from caring about the environment, to coffee – that these ‘white people’ like. To get you started, here are some of the funnier posts I’ve read:

Stuff White People Like

• #6 Organic food
• #20 Being an expert on YOUR culture
• #41 Indie music
• #55 Apologies
• #71 Being the only white person around

There are many other funny posts, but I liked the Indie music and Apologies posts a lot :) …

Stuff Desi (Indian) People Like

Obviously, the next question for all of us desis is, is there a desi knock-off of the ‘SWPL’ site yet? Apparently, the #1 thing desis like to do is to make desi knock-offs of the original site, because I have come across at least 8 knock-offs already ! The following four are merely sites worth mentioning, and I’ve left out many other sites that have simply acquired a similar domain name and done nothing since then – ( Now there’s your typical desi, out to make a quick buck by holding on to a hot domain name! )

Anyway, in decreasing order of posts/readers( and hence, popularity) , we have

• Stuff Indians Like: Seems catered to ABDs (American Born Desis) but I found it quite funny nevertheless
• Stuff Desis Like: Relatively new, but funny as well
• Desis101: Only just started, has miles to go to catch up with the above two imho (HT: Desipundit)
• Stuff Indian people like: Nice domain name, but no real work done besides a few youtube video links

Once again, to get you started, here are some of the posts I liked, mainly from the top two sites above:

• #76: Taco bell fire sauce
  
• #8: Dancing with their arms up
• #2: Network Marketing: Amway: Believe it or not, my classmate approached me with this pyramid scheme waaay back in 8th grade! :P
• #23: Orkut .. the desi hub ( I liked this the most :)

While I am not sure which of these sites will eventually win as the ‘established Indian version of SWPL’, its certainly good that many people are attempting it and eventually, the one with the best quality will win, not just the best domain name. I’m sure the eventual winner will be quite a fun site to read every once in a while.

Good luck to them, and may the best knock-off win !