By Angela Watercutter and Jenna Wortham
Christian Lander, blogger and creator of the controversial site "Stuff White People Like," has landed a book dealwith major publishing company Random House.
The site, which launched in January, pokes fun at the habits of himself and a few friends in a series of provocative, satirical posts. SWPL has nabbed a staggering 18 million hits since the first post went up just three months ago.
"When we started this site we did it like anyone else who can get a free WordPress account," Lander said this morning via email. "We never expected it to get this big, ever."
Not bad for a side project the copywriter-by-day cooked up with a friend while trying to figure out what white folks were doing when they should've been watching *The Wire. *The book, due out in August, will contain classic gems from the site, but also incorporate tons of new material and some graphic elements that wouldn't necessarily work on the Web, Lander said.
Perhaps not surprisingly, Lander blogged this morning about the deal, thereby making "Book Deals" the 92nd thing that white people like (that's the author above right, loving the recycling). "The combination of white people and books has been a pretty solid combo for the past few hundred years. So whenever a white person is given a chance to write a book, it’s considered a pretty big deal," Lander wrote in the post.
Barack Obama, [organic food](http://stuffwhitepeoplelike.wordpress.com/2008/01/19/6-organic-food/) and having gay friends also appear on the list of "likes." And though some critics of the site maintain the list is stereotypical and even racist, Lander insists it's all in good fun, adding that people who actually deal with race issues really enjoy SWPL. Other level heads have come to defend his brand of humor.
Lander insists there's no big secret to how he nails down such hilarious satire.
"I just think of the stuff my friends from undergrad and graduate school would get excited about," he said. "That's it really."
*Photo courtesy Stuff White People Like *
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