Ethnic Avenue – The Street That Crosses All the Others

Posts Tagged ‘Woo-ing’

I’m always amused when someone is shocked or outraged by people just doing the things they’re predisposed to doing. Look, don’t get passive-aggressively mad at the intimidating black people sitting in front of you for talking through the whole movie. You should know better. Besides, if you’d actually stop and listen to them, you’d realize their commentary is enhancing whatever sorry movie you’re watching anyway.

A lot of us are convinced that we pick and choose everything we do. When, in reality, we can’t help but do some shit. Bring a White girl to a really good concert and try to get her to not “woo” and you’ll see what I mean.

Such is the case with IKEA furniture and Europeans.

For most of us, IKEA is a cheap-ass place to pick up planks of particle board, that we eventually assemble into disposable furniture by deciphering the hieroglyphics in the crappy instruction manual. Some of the stuff is so hilariously modern and abstract, that you buy it because it just looks interesting in the apartment you share with your 16 other roommates. But eventually, you get old–or rich–enough to leave the shit out on the sidewalk and get some real, adult furniture.

Europeans don’t see it that way. For them, an oversized red plastic bubble is a chair. So IKEA, for them, is a just another furniture store.

I learned this lesson a few years ago from these FOB Czech people I knew. They bragged, non-stop for like three weeks, about their “fancy new furniture” and how I had to come over and see it. When I finally did, their house looked like the IKEA showroom. Thinking they were playing some sort of strange Eastern European prank on me, I asked, with as-straight-a-face as I could muster: “is this from…IKEA?” They laughed in my face, and told me it was actually from some frou-frou European furniture store. But, guess what: It. Was. The. Same. Exact. Shit.

If that doesn’t convince you, read this story about a wealthy Icelandic couple that’s being sued for installing a “cheap IKEA kitchen” into a fancy apartment they rented (to the tune of 300,000 smackers) in a “swank hotel in New York.”

The lawsuit filed in Manhattan Wednesday alleges that Jon Asgeir Johannesson and his wife installed an “ugly” kitchen from the low-cost household furnishings store into the 16th-floor apartment at the Gramercy Park Hotel.

…the lawsuit claims the kitchen was unsuitable for such a luxurious home.

Whoever’s suing should have known better.

The source of the overwhelming majority of stereotypes about White girls at-large, the Straight-Up White Girl is probably the most abundant variety of White girl. Because their fashion and language can vary by region and conditions, they’re often misclassified into one of the group’s subsidiary, niche member classes: the “Valley girl,” sorority chicks, mall girls, girl-sport athletes (e.g., volleyball), cheerleaders, and others who make up the overall species.

But not every White girl is a Straight-Up White Girl. The group excludes some notable cousins like Sporty-Crunchy White Girl, Gangsta White Girl, and Indie-Hipster White Girl.

Appearance & Dead-Giveaways

• Immaculate, braces-straight teeth to match straight hair
• Unmistakable “White-girl accent” and inflection; heavy use of space-fillers like “she-was-like”
• Displays the absolutely latest fashions and trends (e.g., Ugg boots with mini skirt)
• Seemingly unaware of, or indifferent to, dressing exactly like one another
• Legs and feet that never seem to get cold (flips flops, shorts–even in winter—at the faintest sign of decent weather)
• Fond of loud “woo-ing” to publicly express their approval of things

Lifestyle & Tendencies

• Survive on a steady diet of entrée-sized salads, fancy coffee drinks, and heavy cell phone use
• Drive around in Volkswagen Jettas or similar, “cute” girl-cars
• In warm weather regions, will often ride around in beach-cruiser bicycles (in flip-flops and shorts, no less)
• “Love to dance,” but unwittingly perpetuate the white-girls-can’t-dance stereotype when they do
• Carelessly unaware of realities beyond their immediate, privileged existence
• Painfully unaware of the ephemeral nature of beauty, their tendency to age poorly, and the expiration date for their time-limited lifestyle
• Become embittered and bitchy in their 30s, when their favorable position in society–directly associated with their youth and perceived desirability– starts to erode into mean and cruel cougar-hood