Christian Lander is the Jane Goodall of white people—if Jane Goodall had a thing for satire and self-loathing. Lander’s blog, Stuff White People Like, playfully skewers liberal, affluent, white culture (sample entries: “Knowing What’s Best for Poor People” and “Wes Anderson Movies”), and it’s so on point that he’s managed to publish two books on the subject. He’ll be at Elliott Bay Books on December 7 to read from the latest, Whiter Shades of Pale: The Stuff White People Like, Coast to Coast, from Seattle’s Sweaters to Maine’s Microbrews. Oh, and in case you were wondering: Yes, he’s white, and yes, he’s making fun of himself.

I’m not making this up: The illustration of the Seattleite is my neighbor. The only difference is that he heats his house with wood.
He heats his house with wood? Homeboy is hardcore. Here’s the thing. We laugh at him right now, but ultimately this is the white race’s inherent sense of self-preservation. When the apocalypse comes, these are the dudes who are going to make it. Not me. I’m done.

On a scale of Stephen King to Malcolm Gladwell, how white would you say Seattle is?
Jonathan Franzen. The West Coast, the further north you get, the whiter it gets. Portland is amazingly white, but Seattle is very, very, very white. This is the joke that I’ve been making when people ask me how you define a white city: Anywhere where property values outstrip income, that’s a white city.

How long until “self-aware mocking of their own foolish tendencies” stops being something that white people like?
Man, if I had to guess when it started, I would have said it would have happened a year and a half ago. But I think as long as white people are pretentious, it’s going to work. And I don’t see that ending any time soon.

In studying white people, which of their habits have you picked up yourself?
I’m as predictable as anybody on these things. I get so suckered into stuff like, “Oh, this new restaurant that makes really expensive hot dogs, I have to go. I’ll totally wait in line for three hours. It’ll be the best hot dog I’ve had in my life.” I’m a foodie, so I’m into that stuff. The one thing, however, that I will never get caught up in, ever, is camping.

I thought everyone from Canada camped.
No thank you. My ancestors literally died to get out of the hell that is nature, and I’m not going to insult them by going back. You could get a disease, you could get killed by an animal, you could get killed by another camper, you could get lost. And the one good thing that happens is that you come back. That’s the best case scenario of camping.

I went camping with friends a lot in college. We went out into the woods and drank.
You know you can drink inside now, right? We have bars and stuff, which are great. When you run out of beer, you can go up to the bar and get another one.

Touche.