STUFF WHITE PEOPLE LIKE - The Melbourne Version

Being mistaken for a local in New York City

2011-12-19T19:39:00.000-08:00

Despite the existence of a New York State being the source of constant confusion for white Melburnians, their love for New York City continues unabated. However, the non-New York City parts of America hold little interest to Melbourne white people, with back-to-back Bush presidencies appearing to have neutralised the broad popularity of Kerouac's On the Road. In fact, the longest a white Melburnian has been known to tolerate a non-New York City part of the USA was a four hour layover at LAX in 2009. Even though the Aussie dollar is making a parody of parity by hitting $1.10 against the Greenback earlier this year, white Melburnians will only visit American places that are just like Fitzroy, only cooler. If North America was Chapel street, New York City would be the Windsor end.

In order to exchange your travel stories for cultural capital back home, you need to visit places that have the right balance between notoriety and obscurity. Telling people you went to Swaziland will mean nothing to most white Melburnians. On the other hand, saying you went to the Netherlands will only mean you get to listen to stories from people who were there five years before you. This is why being mistaken for a local in New York City is so important to Melbourne white people! This will be the one story they always tell. Long after they realise how naive it sounds to say 'New Yorkers talk just like they do in the movies'(!), the time they were mistaken for a local in New York City will be rehashed again and again.

But the problem of loving New York is that every other tourist also loves New York, sometimes just as much as you do! Right now your Mum is remembering her New York shopping trips to Macy's and Bloomingdale's - she even thinks these shops can't be found anywhere else. Meanwhile, your brother is in the midst of a Jay Z phase and is planning a trip to Times Square. Walking past RMIT at lunch, you just heard some First Years discussing their experiences in a Manhattan bagel shop and how the guy behind the counter was full looking at them. So how do you position your experience in New York as superior? Just follow the subtle tricks used by White Melburnians.

The first trick is to never mention how you thought New Yorkers would comment on your Australian accent. The streets of New York are awash with foreign accents, just like Melbourne. Aside from being mistaken for South African or British, there really isn't any difference having an Australian accent in New York as there is in Melbourne. Secondly, you should rave about the burritos and other Mexican food, but be careful to only frame the price as exotic. Thirdly, spend most of your time in Brooklyn.

The trip to Brooklyn is like a pilgrimage, but instead of paying respects to a God, white Melburnians go to worship trendier versions of themselves. Hedge your trip to Brooklyn against all of the fashion mistakes you have ever made and are yet to make. Think of the trip as a form of insurance, collateral or credentialing. Maybe you used to go to raves or have a Chinese character tattoo. Maybe you're worried that your current look will soon be out of date. The shame of these mistakes will be lessened if you have been to New York because New York never goes out of style. For example, the long beards that make white Melburnian men look like they're impersonating the Federal member for Leichhardt at the turn of the century and the short hair on white Melburnian women that is reminiscent of the 1993 year 12 class at De La Salle will eventually be subjected to devastating critique. Thus those soon-to-be embarrassing Facebook photos must be scattered amongst pics of house parties in Brooklyn. It used to be okay to make fun of out-of-date fashion even when you used to sport it yourself, but now online photo albums preserve your mistakes for eternity. Remember: cultural memory amongst white Melburnians goes back about five minutes, but Facebook is forever.

Smith street

2011-11-21T22:14:00.000-08:00

White Melburnians don't like Smith street the way it is today but the past they long for never quite existed. For some reason though it's preferable to yearn for an imagined past than to enjoy the way things are right now. White Melburnians actually prefer some degree of gentrification than none at all. They would never admit this though as many of them lament the processes of gentrification even when they are the gentry. But would you prefer Smith street to return to its smack dealing heyday circa 1999 and get hassled by junkies every time you went there? No? Then you like gentrification!

But Smith street isn't completely gentrified yet because it still has plenty of boarded up shops, amateur graffiti and dive bars. It even has an empty lot overgrown with weeds! Yet this is balanced with an overabundance of salons, Japanese restaurants and Cavallero. Seriously, if you want to get your hair done and eat some udon there's no better place than Smith street. But it's a delicate balance so appreciate it now. One more salon or Japanese restaurant and it'll be a gentrified, sanitised, yuppie suburb with *gasp* late-thirties-women-in-expensive-jeans-pushing-strollers! They might even put-their-keys-and-smartphones-on-the-table-while-meeting-for-coffee! This is the white Melburnian version of hell. So enjoy Smith street today. You'll miss it when it's gone.

Postscript
I reckon Smith street is at the perfect level of gentrification right now so we have to appreciate it otherwise we will never progress as a culture. A culture can still thrive even when the stories it tells itself are retold over and over as long as these stories are adapted to the times in which they are told. So to avoid entering a Dark Age I suggest we recognise the cyclical processes of gentrification - neighbourhoods boom and bust over decades. There will always be a street like Smith street in Melbourne. It won't be exactly the same but this is okay because healthy cultures naturally change and evolve. While Smith street might end up like Acland street it won't matter because another street will rise to take its place. Even though Acland street still retains some gems and Carlisle street now has an appeal that wasn't around back in Acland's Golden Age. But white Melburnians usually do not lament the lack of affordable housing for the poor or the closure of local businesses that are typical consequences of gentrification - they're just pissed off their streets now lack the gritty charm they believe only the poor can provide. So we need a more inclusive way of talking about gentrification.

Complaining about the coffee in remote destinations

2011-11-01T15:53:00.000-07:00

Whether you're in Coober Pedy, Tibet, Broken Hill or Bolivia, you will likely encounter a white Melburnian complaining about the coffee at a local cafe. Many claim to travel to experience foreign cultures but when the culture in question does not include expertise in espresso coffee (with Bonsoy) there will be outrage and contempt. Unwilling to accept cultural diversity when it comes to coffee, Melbourne white people want everywhere to be just like De Clieu. They refuse to imagine an alternative to drinking tiny portions of espresso coffee overwhelmed by warm milk and sugar out of disposable paper cups.

To white Melburnians, a lack of espresso coffee (with Bonsoy) remains the preferred indicator of a nation's poverty. Anything else, such as no clean water, high infant mortality rates, minimal public infrastructure spending, mass unemployment and political oppression will be accepted as givens (even exotic) and consumed as part of a search for difference. Melbourne white people will even expect coffee growing nations - some of the poorest countries on Earth, to have excellent (Italian) espresso coffee. It's sort of like expecting the nation of Ghana to be the world's main consumer of gourmet chocolate, when many Ghanians don't even get a full meal a day. But white Melburnians aren't the only ones who confuse the geographies of production with those of consumption, so why single them out? Because white Melburnians see coffee as necessary for life when in fact it's a luxury item. And because many of them are studying international development degrees.

Innovative fast food chains

2011-10-08T22:51:00.000-07:00

Considering the fried onion only became a staple at Australian barbecues in the 21st century, you can understand the long and successful history fast food chains have enjoyed in this country. They were able to stand apart from the rest of the market by not carbonising the meat and serving condiments other than tomato sauce and tomato sauce. So ever since their takeover of airport lounges, highway off ramps, petrol stations, shopping centres, suburban thoroughfares, freeways, stadiums, schools and universities, it would be safe to assume the spread of fast food chains in our society has reached critical mass. But there is one place left for them to colonise: the graffitied laneways and cycle-friendly streets of white Melbourne.

A clustering of fast food chains can be observed at the borders of white Melbourne, like insurgents clamoring at the gates of the Green Zone. Bell Street Maccas, Pizza Hut and PizzaMaster on the corner of Smith and Victoria, the KFC on Chapel Street, Prahran. To move beyond their natural habitat (which is overrun by competing species) they've had to evolve. Innovative fast food chains are the most adaptive of their kind, characterised by a lack of drive-through, the addition of drinks and even alcohol served in very adult-like glass bottles, and semi-exotic condiments like aioli and guacamole. Their staff are allowed some flexibility in the choice of head wear instead of the standard issue cap, and they usually address all their male customers with the informal 'man' or 'dude'. Some of the stores come with literary references and apostrophes where none should exist, but their most appealing feature is a refreshing self-awareness that they're just fast food chains. Thanks to such innovations, Melbourne white people can now eat fast food without shame and in daylight hours.

Toto's Africa

2011-09-20T19:17:00.000-07:00

Originally I was going to write about how white Melburnians have an ironic appreciation of this song. I was then going to mention how the absurdity of the line about 'blessing the rains down in Africa' somehow makes the ironic sing-a-longs more enjoyable, because surely Melbourne white people would never sing a song just for the fun of it. But have you noticed how the loud cheering it receives at house parties is kind of real? And have you ever noticed how good it feels to sing the chorus out loud? It's the white Melburnian equivalent of Livin' on a Prayer! So the truth is white Melburnians love Toto's Africa because it's an awesome song.

Meeting at Melbourne Central instead of Flinders Street

2011-08-24T18:11:00.001-07:00

Melbourne white people gave up on Flinders Street Station in 2004 when Transport opened at Federation Square. They will never go back. The goths and punks, the evangelical Christians (every Friday night), the overwhelming police presence, the short skirts and muscle tops, the lack of bike parking areas, the "Metro Safety Announcements", the cold, the alienating architectural form and the proximity to Crown Casino, make Flinders Street the station for the wrong types of white Melburnians.

Melbourne Central Station (hereafter MCS) is a lot better. It's inside so you don't have to worry about the cold, and it's close to the state library so you can update your status about how you're studying at the library. There's even a giant clock so white Melburnians can still meet under one and not feel like they are betraying the spirit of their city.

But what the preference of MCS over Flinders Street demonstrates is the alternative geographies white Melburnians use when navigating their city. In the white Melburnian mind, the southern border of the city is Bourke Street, its western perimeter is Elizabeth Street\Royal Parade, its eastern side ends at Punt Road, and it's bounded by Alexandra Parade in the north. Imagining the city of Melbourne in this way incorporates Fitzroy and Carlton into the CBD, relegating Flinders Street to the status of a suburban train station and eliminating King Street from the discussion. White Melburnians are trying to recreate Melbourne in their own image.

Quirky lists

2011-08-07T18:37:00.000-07:00

One of the best ways to judge a person's character in the internet age is by reading the lists they write in online profiles. For those of you who are new to the international network ('internet', for short), this was not always so. In the nineties, getting-to-know-you question-and-answer lists circulating via electronic mail ('e-mail') on the intra-planetary lattice, or 'worldwide web', were mostly concerned with whether or not you ate the stems of broccoli. Hence their ability to convey to the reader the character of the person responding to the questions was quite limited. Because of social networking sites and web logs ('blogs'), more accurate assessments of character, such as delineating between wrong and right types of white Melburnians, are now possible. The wrong type of white Melburnian takes the act of list writing literally. To them it is just a list, not a work of art. Lists of interests displayed on the web profiles of the wrong types normally look something like this:

Hot showers
Watching movies
Going fishing with my Dad
Sleeping in
Sickies
Catching up with friends

There's nothing wrong with this list of interests except that it's just a list of interests. Therefore it could not have been written by the right type of Melbourne white person, whose list of interests look more like this:

The donuts at Footscray station
Karaoke
Making lists
Frankston savers
Breakfast burritos
Marieke Hardy
World's End Press
Palindromes
Going off on tangents
Schadenfreude
Bad puns

White Melburnians believe a list of interests should be used to reflect intellect, cleverness, self-deprecation, humour, worldliness and competence. If you are about to write your own list of interests, remember that one of the most important features to convey is cleverness, but done in a cautious way so as not to totally overwhelm the reader with how clever you are. This is best accomplished by inserting into the list something self-referential like 'awesome alliterations'. The trick of list writing is to make the whole construction of the list appear effortless but expend a great deal of effort to accomplish this - which is a central feature of white Melburnian culture.

Seven Seeds

2011-07-19T18:56:00.001-07:00

The practice of mounting heads of large animals to the walls of drinking barns has been done in both the American West and southern Africa to convey the wildness of the environment and the mastery of humans over nature. White Melburnians have conquered nature with the fixie, which is why several of them are mounted to the walls of Seven Seeds. You can even park your bike inside. Seven Seeds could not be more Melbourne if you built the entire cafe out of sections of the MCG's Southern Stand. Inside there are communal tables allowing strangers to sit together that would enable lively group discussions in other countries. But at Seven Seeds they are used so white Melburnians can indulge in one of their favourite activities - observing one another in silence.

In Melbourne, cafe owners go to great lengths to make it appear as if their cafes were outfitted by the Salvation Army. Empty metal bookcases with visible signs of rust are highly prized, while menus built into the unsold books from garage sales are considered very sophisticated. At Seven Seeds the lack of a proper ceiling and the use of exposed brick gives the impression the building was constructed out of scrap materials. Thus cafes in Melbourne favour a design style that has historically been used by societies in decline.

Such aesthetics might explain why the coffee at Seven Seeds only comes in one size - small. This would not be out of place in a state-controlled economy like communist Russia where the government considers a large cappuccino to be either a bourgeoisie extravagance or grossly inefficient. But in a flourishing market economy like Australia, where it is believed consumer choice creates competition and thus prosperity, it might seem a little odd. Yet it totally adheres to the theme of imminent societal collapse.

The Greens

2011-06-30T21:10:00.001-07:00

White people have a proud history of exaggerating their influence upon society. For instance, it is widely believed that during the 1960s, groups of white people from Europe and North America invented casual sex and music. So it remains to be seen whether or not the rise of the Greens signals the coming of a new age in Australian politics or a Family First-style anomaly. While Bandt's election victory was widely interpreted as either a failure of the two major parties or the result of a growing environmental awareness amongst the electorate, it was more significant for incorporating white Melburnian values into mainstream Australian society. That's right - white Melburnians even have their own political party!

Most people think the Greens are a one issue party, but they're more like a one seat party. Adam Bandt probably has more support in Williamsburg than Williamstown. To take this idea further, you could imagine a white Melburnian microstate with Fitzroy as the capital and their president famous for being the only world leader who cycles to Parliament. But most of the leafy neighbourhoods and beachside electorates in Melbourne vote conservative. It is ironic that the suburbs with the least amount of environmental amenity attract the most support for the Greens.

The Community Cup

2011-06-19T05:06:00.000-07:00

On the train ride to Elsternwick en route to the Community Cup, white Melburnians will try to remember the last time they were south of the river; which was this time last year during the Community Cup. While laughing at Fred Negro's dick jokes retains a certain appeal, the best part about the Community Cup is getting to watch a football game but convincing yourself it's just for community radio and raising money for charity.

At some point during the day, white Melburnians will discuss how different it feels south of the river, and it's best to agree with them if you want to fit in. They might even go so far as to describe it as a 'different world', and in a way it is. Southside is closer to the coast, so the air pressure is different. It's further from Tullamarine so there are less planes in the sky. It has been a wealthy area for longer than Northside, and this is reflected in the architecture and landscaping.

But these features are of minimal concern for most white Melburnians, who only created the distinction between North and South to augment their own feelings of superiority. White Melburnian identity is largely based on geography, so they have expended a great deal of energy constructing artificial spatial boundaries in exchange for cultural capital. This is why they refuse to believe you when you point out that cycling from Fitzroy to South Yarra is way quicker than from Fitzroy to Coburg. They want to be reassured they have made the culturally superior consumer choices. Even though feeling superior about where you rent is kind of oxymoronic, especially if your parents are paying.

Astor posters

2011-05-25T20:48:00.000-07:00

The idea of the Astor is so much better than the reality. Rare films from around the world, hidden gems by well known directors, alternative classics instead of Citizen Kane and Gone With The Wind. A year-round film festival with an affectionate cat! But the reality - movies as predictable as the Vegie Bar menu (how many times do we need to see Baraka, Scarface, Apocalypse Now, Grindhouse, Princess Monoke and Pulp Fiction?). Then there's the uncomfortable seats, the choc tops with their safe flavours, and an indifferent cat. But their posters are an easy way to liven up a bathroom or toilet. Nothing says Melbourne more than an Astor poster. You'd have to stick up Melway pages to get more Melbourne. This is why Astor posters are the white Melburnian equivalent of Australian flags. When a white Melburnian moves away, they bring an Astor poster with them to decorate their new place in Brooklyn or Berlin. It helps break the ice with their new housemate from New Jersey or Romania, while reminding them of home and all of the movies they could have seen, but didn't. Thus for white Melburnians, the Astor becomes a lot like Antarctica. They'll never go, they're just happy knowing it exists.

Piedimonte's

2011-05-25T17:12:00.000-07:00

The IGA business model is so adaptable. An IGA can be a 24 hour convenience store at a BP service station (Caulfield South), a 24 hour bottle shop (Windsor), and the only supermarket in the Daintree rainforest (Far North Queensland). But what makes the one on Best street, North Fitzroy so special? It has an Italian name! But white Melburnians are not obsessed with IGAs, they're just obsessed with Piedimonte's. White Melburnians need to shop there because it makes them feel less guilty for indulging in the cheap milk at Safeway. In the nineties, proto-white Melburnians would cite whatever remnants of ethnic heritage they had as a way to justify their presence at Piedimonte's. But people soon tired of hearing about great grandmothers who were one-eighth Italian so this gave way to tales of adventuring around eastern Europe (which were actually just day trips from Berlin). Because of Piedimonte's, white Melburnians have an excuse to tell you about the time they ate a spinach and fetta borek at an open air market in Sofia. This is a big deal for Melbourne white people as they are used to eating Bulgarian fetta from Safeway.

So if you're new to Melbourne, do not describe the location of your place in terms of its proximity to Zagames. Use Piedimonte's. It's a culturally appropriate spatial reference point. It doesn't matter that Zagames is very prominent or the fact everybody knows where it is. It doesn't even matter that Piedimonte's is fast becoming redundant as a spatial reference point because everybody claims to live nearby. Use it anyway! You might get lost, but you'll still have friends.

Pho

2011-02-26T20:22:00.000-08:00

With a name like pho, you’d expect something a little more exotic than noodle soup. But that is the point of pho. As a general rule, white Melburnians don’t like anything that’s self-explanatory. Pho can be eaten without straining the sensitive Anglo palate but sounds exotic enough to convince work colleagues you're adventurous. Most White Melburnians believe Vietnamese food cannot be found outside the inner city. This is because they’ve never heard of Springvale.

What I like about pho is the word itself. The way it typically ends with a mispronounced open-ended vowel makes it seem like the word keeps going after you’ve said it, the sound waves from the ‘o’ rippling through space-time and resonating into infinity like the vestiges of the Big Bang on your TV screen or the light that shines from stars that no longer exist.

But it’s just noodle soup.

Aussie Hip Hop

2011-02-19T20:43:00.001-08:00

White Melburnians will tell you they don’t listen to American hip hop because it ‘oppresses women’. You see, the white males who make most of the music they listen to would never do that. While their North American and European counterparts openly love American hip hop, it's sort of like ethnic music to Melbourne white people and they aren’t sure how to listen to it. I blame Triple J for this.

Melbourne white people are new to hip hop. In 1997, most white Melburnians were too busy mourning the death of Princess Diana to notice Biggie getting shot in a Los Angeles drive-by. Whenever a white Melburnian hears American rap music they’ll cock their wrist in the air, convulse rhythmically, and say “Yo! Yo! Yo! Yo!” But they are not having a seizure. They are just condemning this music in the most powerful way they know how – through ironic mimicry. Any rap fans witnessing such a defiant display will cower in fear and change the music to something more socially acceptable – Aussie hip hop. White Melburnians will never admit it, but the sound of a man rapping in an Australian accent secretly makes them cringe.

Mexican food

2011-02-01T21:38:00.000-08:00

Sick of listening to your Mum’s friends talking about how great Paris is? Tired of hearing your old high school friends rave about Asia? Shit-scared of going to Africa but too ashamed to admit it? Luckily for you there is a region of the Earth specifically designed for white Melburnians that nobody else has ever heard of. It is called Latin America. This is the region of the Earth starting at Mexico and going all the way down to Cape Horn, Chile, in the southern cone of South America. In order to avoid confusion, it is important to note that in white Melburnian culture, Latin America is also referred to as South America, even though Mexico is part of North America. This is clearly done for the sake of convenience.

Since Thai, Indian, Turkish, Chinese, Italian, Malaysian, Vietnamese and Greek cuisines now have mass appeal, white Melburnians have begun dining on Mexican food because it enables them to maintain their feelings of cultural superiority during meal times. WARNING! When eating Mexican food in Melbourne you may experience a sinking feeling in your stomach! But this is not from the food. It’s caused by white Melburnians competing for Alpha status.

Melbourne white people don’t go to Mexican restaurants just to eat, they go to showcase their formidable Latin American skill set. Over a meal of Mexican food, a white Melburnian can tell stories about drinking Mexican beers that aren’t Corona, flaunt their awareness of a variety of corn that’s blue (they can even do it at Blue Corn), instruct lower ranking white Melburnians in the pronunciation of ‘quesadilla’ and demonstrate their grasp of Spanish, which is based around telling people that Pajero means wanker in Latin America. But in order to put their Alpha status beyond doubt, the highest ranking white Melburnians will discuss the highs and lows of the time they backpacked/volunteered/studied in Mexico/Guatemala/Chile and express the desire to go to Haiti if only it wasn’t a post-apocalyptic hellscape.

Nostalgia

2011-01-13T21:55:00.001-08:00

You’ll hear many white Melburnians express dismay at gentrification, and you are advised to go along with it if you want their friendship, but know this – white Melburnians secretly love gentrification. Why? Because they are nostalgic and love to yearn for the way things used to be! Just like your Dad yearns for a time when there were no Muslims in Australia, white Melburnians long for the days when they could stroll down Brunswick street in their pyjamas, catch Something for Kate at the Punters Club, and talk about how great the Vegie Bar is without sarcasm.

Expanding the Frontiers of Whiteness

2011-01-06T17:46:00.000-08:00

Melbourne white people love trying to predict which suburb they are going to want to live in next. Ever since houses in Fitzroy and Northcote started selling for millions, white Melburnians have been talking about Coburg, Preston and Thornbury with the kind of zeal more readily associated with the Soviet plot to invade Czechoslovakia. But instead of using military force like the Soviets, white Melburnians expand their territory through economic means in a process called gentrification. But it is only expert-level white Melburnians who can sense when the time is right to expand the territory. This is due to a quirk in white Melburnian culture that sees international travel as desirable yet perpetuates insularity when it comes to exploring Melbourne itself.

Below is a list of potential new suburbs to colonise. Their Whiteness Factor indicates their suitability for white Melburnians. It turns out White Melbourne is expanding so fast you might want to consider the possibility of Greater North Epping becoming a white Melburnian suburb around 2030. But please note - it is a guide only. You must wait for the approval from an expert-level white Melburnian before making the move. The key is to find suburbs on the cusp of complete gentrification. That way they still retain the essence of their original state, but have a high enough profile to garner wide respect amongst the white Melbournian community. So it’s still a bit early to tell people you live in Fairfield.

THORNBURY

Pros: Close to Northcote.
Cons: Relatively expensive.

Its proximity to Northcote is worth 3 points alone but there is a risk hyper-gentrification will turn Thornbury into the Brighton of the north. Whiteness Factor: 3/5.

PRESTON

Pros: Has Preston Market.
Cons: Has Northland Shopping Centre.

The market means Preston will always rank highly amongst Melbourne white people but Northland(s) brings too many of the wrong type of white Melburnians to Preston. Whiteness Factor: 3/5.

SPOTSWOOD

Pros: Has one nice café.
Cons: That one nice cafe is in Spotswood.

Spotswood still feels like a country town, which would be a great if it really was a country town, but for a suburb that is literally in the shadow of the West Gate Bridge it is unacceptable. Whiteness Factor: 2/5.

FOOTSCRAY

Pros: Lots of black people.
Cons: Lots of black people.

White Melburnians make a lot of noises about Footscray, particularly the Ethiopian restaurants, but they are still too scared of black Melburnians to seriously consider moving here. Whiteness Factor: 2/5.

DOCKLANDS

Pros: Inner city location.
Cons: A sterile facsimile of a real suburb.

Docklands could have ranked highly but too bad the corporations got here first. Instead of quirky cafes and recycled clothing shops, there's The Coffee Club and Cotton On. It’s basically Chadstone by the Sea. Whiteness Factor: 1/5.

GREATER NORTH EPPING

Pros: Day trips to Uluru?
Cons: No train station.

I can see Indonesia from my house. Whiteness Factor: 0/5.

COBURG

Pros: Feels a lot like Brunswick.
Cons: ?

Since Brunswick is the current capital of White Melbourne and Coburg kind of feels like Brunswick if you don’t think about it too much, I think Coburg is the winner. Whiteness Factor: 5/5.

Any others?

Verbose Addresses

2010-11-25T21:18:00.000-08:00

Melbourne white people have a fixation with postcodes that is almost Brightonian (which gives them a weird private school vibe). So if you're at a white Melburnian party the first discussions you'll have upon introductions will relate to where you live. They do this to determine if the conversation is worth continuing. If you don't live Northside be ready to look for someone else to talk too.

But since all white Melburnians live Northside, there has to be a way for the most devout ones to demonstrate their superiority. One of the ways they do this is through verbose addresses. The most dedicated white Melburnians will always live down an alleyway, in a warehouse or above a shop, which makes their addresses longer than other Melburnians. If someone has an address like 2/331b Smith street it just means they are better than you. It also means that when they text you their address you should prepare for directions like this: "You have to go down the alleyway behind the Birmingham. On Johnston. Then up some stairs. Give me a call if you can't find it." If you need Google Maps to find the place, white Melburnians will want to live there.

Coopers

2010-11-02T15:43:00.000-07:00

Coopers has been around since 1862 (almost pre-dating white people in the Melbourne area!) yet it is considered the beer of choice for white Melburnians because we've been drinking it since about 2004. The acceptability of Coopers has evolved to the point where it is now uncool to talk openly about your love for it, but if you're in a bar and Coopers is not on tap it's okay to make a comment.

Hipster angst

2010-10-04T23:01:00.000-07:00

Nobody talked about hipsters a few years ago. Back then yuppies ruined the good neighbourhoods. But now most white Melburnians love talking about how they hate hipsters - even if they are hipsters themselves! This level of self-denial has not been observable amongst white Melburnians since they lamented the influx of tourists at Ko Phi Phi.

Despite being a tiny minority of Melbourne's population, hipsters generate huge levels of loathing and anger, making them kind of like boat people for white Melburnians. But you won't hear Melbourne white people calling for the assimilation of hipsters into white Melburnian culture, as white Melburnians prefer to assimilate themselves into hipster culture. But more hipsters can only be a good thing for Melbourne. Who else is going to make our coffee?

Preston market

2010-07-15T23:28:00.000-07:00

The best thing about the Preston Market is that it's in Preston. It doesn't matter that it's just a market and Melbourne is full of those. It's in Preston! While merely acknowledging the existence of the suburb of Preston is your ticket to white Melburnian acceptance, knowing about a market in Preston puts you near the top of the social order amongst Melbourne white people. This is because many white Melburnians are too young to remember the Punters club.

You might be wondering why Preston market is so popular now, given that it's been around since 1970. This is because in 1970 all white Melburnians were at a sausage sizzle.

Melbourne white people know it's absurd to claim they discovered a market that has been around for forty years, yet they absolutely want you to think they did. Listen carefully the next time you hear the Preston market being discussed. Nobody will state outright they discovered it, yet discovery is clearly implied. They imply the shit out of it! Hang around white Melburnians for long enough, and you'll start believing Preston was a terra nullius before they came along.

Fixed gear bicycles

2010-06-16T01:56:00.000-07:00

White Melburnians will put shiny rims on their bikes while sneering at anybody who puts shiny rims on their cars. Fixed gear bicycles (fixies) are popular with White Melburnians because of all the bike-friendly streets in Northside such as Lygon, Nicholson and Sydney road! The popularity of fixies is facilitated by the generally flat topography in the northern suburbs. One exception is Northcote, where the most direct route is via a steep hill up Queens parade and High street. But that is just the earth's way of telling us Northcote is not worth the trouble!

Melbourne white people obsess over fixies in the hope it distracts them from noticing how their lifestyles are based around cars and long-haul flights. The irregularity of services on the Upfield and Epping lines, the lack of train stations in Carlton North and Brunswick East, plus twin obsessions with New York and Berlin mean that White Melburnians are heavily dependent on fossil fuels.

But Melbourne white people are smart enough to know even a short domestic flight will send their ecological footprints soaring past two and a half earths. It doesn't matter how many times we ride our bikes and refrain from eating meat and dairy. We are going to have to plant a proxy Amazon stretching from Ipswich to Monkey Mia to have any chance of sequestering all that carbon. Hence the need for distraction.

Now please excuse me, Dan Murphy's is closing and I need to drive down there and get some Sapporo. I've been hooked on it ever since that Halloween party in Tokyo last year.

Procrastinating

2010-05-27T01:06:00.000-07:00

The only thing White Melburnians love more than procrastinating is talking about procrastinating. This phenomenon begins during VCE but reaches maturity during the university exam periods. The transcript below describes a typical conversation between university students waiting for the exam room to open. While taking certain creative liberties, it nevertheless demonstrates how the hyperbole escalates from first to third year.

First Year: "I studied a bit. I should be okay."
Second Year: "I hardly studied. I might fail." *nervous laughter*
Third Year: *maniacal laughter* "HAHAHA! I didn't study AT ALL! I spent last night on the couch drinking whisky and watching Friends! I'm still drunk heeeheeee zzzzzz aarrrgh!"

After university procrastinating is used to mask a darkly competitive streak as White Melburnians believe that by hiding their ambitions they are more likely to achieve them. But there is also another reason for this secrecy.

As White Melburnian culture is a subset of Australian culture it struggles to fit its celebration of excellence into a broader Australian culture that reveres mediocrity. The result is that White Melburnians feel ashamed of their ambitions. But why is the pursuit of excellence frowned up in Australian culture? Are we really that conservative?

Even professional sportspeople, who only pull crowds because Australians want to see gifted athletes performing at the peak of their ability, can be criticised for "showing off". But who would pay to watch some mildly talented people behaving modestly?

Maggie Gyllenhaal

2010-05-11T23:41:00.000-07:00

While Jake Gyllenhaal is set to lose White Melburnian credibility with the release of Prince of Persia, Maggie has maintained a high level of popularity amongst Melbourne white people at least since Secretary (2002).

White Melburnians love her because she's not a ravishing beauty but still totally hot, and also because she's not Katie Holmes. When Maggie Gyllenhaal replaced Katie Holmes as Rachel Dawes in The Dark Knight, she achieved a Marieke Hardy-esque level of pan-White Melburnian acceptance.

Ironic anything

2010-03-04T22:18:00.000-08:00

White Melburnians are smart enough to know that being stuck in a traffic jam when you're already late is not ironic. It might be if you were the head of VicRoads driving to a meeting where you were to give a presentation called: "The Myth of Congestion: why Melbourne's roads are always empty".

Overusing irony is dangerous because it can detract from the richness of our experiences by forcing everything to be engaged with in only one way - through the prism of irony. Irony also requires an emotional detachment that further limits the range of possible reactions to our experiences.

But Melbourne white people are not going to confuse simple bad luck with irony because they discovered irony way back in 1991, during Nirvana's Smells Like Teen Spirit video. The camera panned across a group of cheerleaders who had anarchy symbols on their uniforms. Ever since then, irony has played a pivotal role in white Melburnian culture. As white Melburnians are generally poor at sports, it leaves them only one way through which to demonstrate alpha status - via intelligence. By flaunting their grasp of an abstract notion such as irony Melbourne white people assert their position at the top of the social order. In fact, white Melburnians love irony so much they are quite happy to settle for garden-variety sarcasm, making irony an ironically easy concept for everyone to employ.

Rules For Eating Ethnic Foods

2009-12-10T01:50:00.001-08:00

While it's essential for all white Melburnians to love ethnic foods, there are some that have been appropriated by the wrong type of white people and are best avoided. Below is a short list of dishes that are to be eaten for take-away only. Feel free to add more.

CHINESE
- Beef with black bean
- Lemon chicken
- Dim sims (especially fried)

INDIAN
- Beef vindaloo
- Rogan Josh
- Butter chicken

THAI
- Pad Thai (acceptable only on Khao San Road)

ITALIAN
- Spaghetti bolognaise
- Pizza with pineapple

Richmond

2009-11-30T23:48:00.000-08:00

With a Southside vibe but geographically located north of the river, Richmond is a white Melburnian paradox. There are two classic white Melburnian venues - the Great Britain Hotel and the Corner Hotel, dispersed amongst several large drinking barns popular with the wrong type of white people. Consequently, the streets of Richmond are littered with the corpses of white Melburnians who have suffered social death.

My advice is to drink lightly, so you maintain the mental fortitude needed to negotiate the minefield. Because when it's dark and you're drunk, it's very easy to end up in one of these places by accident. It's also easy to end up in one of these places deliberately, as the burger and taco place is just so damn tempting!

Just remember that all sins are possibly forgiveable with one exception - the Swan Hotel located on the corner of Swan and Church streets. You know it. It has cover bands playing "Drive" by Incubus and big screen TVs playing football. Go there if you don't want friends.

Spicey Lamb Borek at the Vic Market

2009-11-30T23:45:00.000-08:00

Somebody suggested this should be in the list, and while it's totally awesome, the spicey lamb borek at Brew Cafe on Poath road, Hughesdale is even better. It's huge and perfectly crispy and it comes with a tasty salad. It's a classy borek. If it was a head of state it would be Borek Obama.

Lucas' Papaw Ointment

2009-11-29T00:49:00.000-08:00

The best thing about Lucas' Papaw Ointment is that it's not Lip Smacker. It comes in a simple red pack with black lettering in only one flavour - papaw. This is in contrast to Lip Smacker which had nauseating psychedelic packaging, weird smells and absurd flavour names (Berry Heavenly, Cozy Cupcake, Mint Jubilee, Candy Cane Treat), all of which led to its abandonment by white Melburnian women some time around 1999. The reign of Lucas' Papaw Ointment continues unabated.

Abbotsford Convent

2009-11-21T21:47:00.000-08:00

Abbotsford is Northside's eastern fringe. Beyond it lies Melbourne's badlands, a savage hellhole of large, spacious houses with clean indoor bathrooms; quiet, tree lined streets, and where the nearest bar is an agonising fifteen minutes away by tram.

The convent is popular with Melbourne white people because it includes a restaurant, bakery, gallery and a park. While this might describe almost every single neighbourhood in Melbourne, don't be fooled. Remember that white Melburnians have the power to transform an experience shared by millions into something qualitatively different whenever they do it. The best part is when they get to tell their friends where Abbotsford is.

Couchsurfing

2009-11-15T14:56:00.000-08:00

Even though their currency is worth twice as much as ours, Europeans like Couchsurfing because it saves them money. On the other hand, white Melburnians like Couchsurfing because it’s a good travel website but also because it’s an excellent dating website. The most persuasive evidence for which is one of the boxes you must tick in order to become a member. It says “I understand that Couchsurfing Is NOT A Dating Site”. This warning enhances the potency of Couchsurfing as a dating site by enabling its users to convince themselves and their friends that it “happened out of nowhere” and that it was “so random”. Everybody conveniently ignores the fact that Couchsurfing includes photos, lists of interests, and lets you choose who stays over and who doesn’t, allowing couchsurfers to be tailor-made for your bed. Nor does it matter that your couchsurfer was only the fourth good-looking twenty-something Scandinavian to stay at your place in the last three months.

Couchsurfing would never be used to seduce English people because they are too similar to Australians and thus can only provide sex. While Scandinavians can still supply white Melburnians with sex; they also provide a unique cultural experience. This is just as well because Scandinavian food is really bland.

Having Ethnic Friends

2009-11-15T14:52:00.000-08:00

Because it’s fiscally impractical to keep travelling, white Melburnians need other ways to convey how worldly and cultured they are. The easiest way to do this is to have ethnic friends. Now, you might think everyone who has friends has ethnic friends by default because everybody has an ethnicity. But you would be wrong. To Melbourne white people, ethnic pretty much means black and/or Muslim. If, for example, you are Serbian, Polish, Vietnamese, Maltese, Israeli, Greek, Russian, Italian, Chinese, Macedonian or Hungarian*, you aren’t ethnic because you’re not exotic enough^.

If you’re not black and/or Muslim but want to feel exotic again (just like your parents and grandparents did), go to Southern Cross station and ride any VLine train for one hour. At your destination you will likely be told to 'go back to your own country’. Shit. You could probably do it in forty-five minutes.

Please note that perceptions of the exotic can change. People from Turkey and Lebanon have only been exotic since September 11, 2001. Prior to that date, Turks and Lebs were considered ‘wogs’ and were in the same category as Italians, Greeks and Maltese. Al Qaeda changed all that, because now Turks and Lebs are classified as Muslims. As my good friend Ahmed says, “maybe Al Qaeda aimed to do this? Establish the global Caliphate! Expel the Christian mercenary crusaders from the Holy Lands! Wrest Islam away from those sleazy wogs!”

*Anglo-Saxons consider themselves ‘normal’ and are thus without an ethnicity.
^For some reason, Balkan Muslims aren’t exotic enough either.

Southside versus Northside

2009-11-05T08:27:00.000-08:00

When meeting white Melburnians for the first time, it is customary to ask where they live. If you want to make friends with them, never tell them you live 'Southside', or south of the Yarra river (they just call it 'the river'). True white Melburnians live north of the river ('Northside'). If you're living Northside and want to meet a Melbourne white person for a drink, get them to suggest a place then say, "Yeah I know it. I can walk there from my place." They will think you are one of them. Even though Northside is mostly just lightless terrace houses, white Melburnians love it because they are just happy they're not living in Knox anymore.

Warning: if you can't hide your Southside status and still want to make friends with Northsiders, the culture shock you must feign when visiting them is HUGE. Never underestimate it! There has not been such a fierce rivalry between North and South since the American civil war. Here's a tip: when hanging out on Smith street just say something like "wow, you have cafes here, I've heard about these on the internet." You will make heaps of friends and nobody will hear the sarcasm.

While Sydneysiders love to bag out Melbourne, our city has won that rivalry thanks to the white Melburnian tactic of only comparing Melbourne to itself. And sometimes to Berlin. But I like Sydney. It's Australia's only global metropolis.

A Whole Lot Of Stuff White People Like In Melbourne

2009-08-08T21:27:00.000-07:00

Not Liking Football
Sport is popular with the wrong type of white Melburnian, and the most popular sport amongst these people is Australian football. It is no accident that Melbourne is considered Australia’s sporting capital AND its art capital because art is the best way to hide your love of football. In the white Melburnian brain, art and football are mutually exclusive. If you profess an interest in one, everybody will assume you hate the other. Melburnian white people do this to hide their shame, because all of them carry around little shards of pain in their hearts caused by North Melbourne’s shock loss to Adelaide in the 1998 Grand Final, or the 1996 merger of the Fitzroy Lions with the Brisbane Bears, or Essendon’s agonising one point loss to Carlton at the ‘G in 1999.

White Melburnians love comparing football with homosexual sex. If this sounds weird, don’t worry. In Melbourne it is perfectly normal to discuss man-to-man anal sex if the conversation veers towards football. This is because white people in Melbourne are so uncomfortable talking about footy as it might reveal how devastated they were when Carlton got pumped on the weekend. This horrible sense of shame makes anal sex a comparatively easy concept to engage with. So when Richo does his hammy and that shard of pain wells up in their hearts just say something like, “Yeah footy, it’s so homoerotic, don’t you reckon?”

Fingerless Gloves
Melbourne White people love doing things differently, which is why they all wear fingerless gloves. White Melburnians will tell you fingerless gloves are worn for warmth, but that’s obviously not true because proper gloves are even warmer. The real reason is they make them look poor. They also help them mark the Sherrin in the wet.

Confest
Filled with oppressively friendly men who ‘just want to give you a massage,’ Confest is sort of what you imagined the seventies to be like, except with a lot more AIDS and variants of hepatitis. White Melburnians like Confest because they get to experiment with creating a perfect society, which for them means being able to fuck anyone they want. Don’t sit down in the sauna because it’s the equivalent of touching a thousand naked and sweaty assholes.

Dirty 3 gig at Meredith Music Festival in 2004
Because the average age of the typical white Melburnian is twenty-five, it’s not plausible for them to claim they attended the Nirvana gig at the Palace in 1992. In 1992, all of today’s white Melburnians were about seven years old and living in Mount Waverley. This is where the Dirty 3 show comes in. It’s a gig that strengthens white Melburnian culture by providing an event around which its members can experience a sense of shared belonging. If you are new to white Melburnian culture, ask someone, “what’s Meredith like?” White Melburnians have talked each other to death over this show (remember: all of them were there), so a newcomer could easily parachute their way into a new friendship group by getting them to rehash their experiences to a fresh audience.

The Dirty 3 played at dusk on the Saturday night as storm clouds gathered over the stage. Thunder could be heard in the distance. Both literal and metaphorical electricity was in the air. The violinist had big hair, and everybody swore it was standing on end because of the lightning in the atmosphere. I don’t remember what happened after that.

Lentil As Anything
Who would want to eat at a restaurant where it takes thirty minutes to get a table, ten minutes to get a menu, and forty-five minutes to get food? White Melburnians, of course! On the walls are adverts for drummers, rooms for rent, poetry nights and upcoming Dirty 3 shows. There are only two tables worth sitting at in Lentil As Anything. There’s the large bench out the back with pillows and cushions, and then there’s the table up the front with the world map stuck to it. This gives Melbourne white people a chance to discuss the countries they’ve been too and the countries they want to go too, all of which are either in Asia or South America.

The food is all vegetarian and you can pay what you want for your meal. The owners have succeeded in creating a reasonably successful business using an artful combination of trust and guilt. There is a large padlocked wooden dropbox on the front bench where you deposit your money. Just remember to bring lots of loose change and some five dollar notes.

Bonsoy
One of my friends made a wallet out of an empty Bonsoy carton because she is so goddamn sustainable, but white Melburnians love this product mostly because it’s hard to find. It’s not in the soy milk section as you would expect. It’s in the health food section. There was recently a Facebook rumour that Bonsoy was set to become unavailable in Melbourne which meant everyone stocked up in bulk. It was even harder to find after that. Bonsoy is soy milk you have to strive for.

Northcote
Northcote does not make sense. Positioned in the heartland of suburbia, a whopping nine stops away from the city (comparable to North Brighton, Ormond and Murrumbeena) it has somehow managed to defy geography and pass itself off as a gritty inner city urban wonderland. The brilliance of this suburb is only magnified when you go there and discover it’s mostly just a few kebab joints and a massive indoor shopping centre with Kmart, two Coles, Donut King and a fucking Bakers Delight. This is stuff the wrong white Melburnians like! I don’t know how, but Northcote has brainwashed Melbourne white people. Go there to experience genius.

Mulled Wine
This drink lets white Melburnians combine two of their favourite drinks – red wine and chai - into one slightly nauseating drinking experience. The spices are also good for masking the flavour of cheap red wine.

Moroccan Soup Bar
After eating at The Moroccan Soup Bar, you’ll probably feel distressed and wonder, “How does a restaurant with only one good dish have a line out the door night after night?” But think about it. Do you think there’d be a line out the door if the place was called The English Soup Bar or The Tasmanian Soup Bar? Not a chance. This restaurant is in Fitzroy North, the only suburb in Melbourne where people talk about Morocco. Either they’ve been there or want to be there. If you mention you’ve been to Morocco while dining at The Moroccan Soup Bar, prepare to answer questions about what you ate. This is a cruel question because anyone who’s been to Morocco will know that all you ate were burgers, fries, croissants and those weird red meat sausages.

Dropping the ‘North’ from your suburb
If you believed white Melburnians, you’d think the suburbs of Fitzroy North and Carlton North were barren wastelands filled with abandoned houses and stray cats. That’s because people who live in these suburbs never admit it. Instead, they say they live in “Carlton”, or “Fitzroy.” If you live in a northern suburb, your status as a white Melburnian is augmented if you live in the southern parts because they are closer to the city. Thus white Melburnians get more status if they live in Carlton or Fitzroy instead of Carlton North or Fitzroy North. But you can’t ask white Melburnians directly because they are notoriously deceptive. You have to read between the lines by asking questions like, “So how long does it take to get to the city?” If the response is, “Oh, only 15 minutes by bike,” they are lying. Carlton and Fitzroy are only five to ten minutes from the city by bike. These people really live Carlton North or Fitzroy North. But some Melbourne white people are smart and will know what you’re doing. In that case you have to get them talking about their neighbourhoods (most white Melburnians are dying to tell you where they live) and keep an ear out for key words such as: St Georges Road; Piedemontes; Edinburgh Gardens; cemetery; VicRoads. If these are mentioned, chances are they live in Carlton North or Fitzroy North.

Ceres
At Ceres, white Melburnians get to do everything they normally do except they get to feel like they are Making A Difference while doing it. So at Ceres you’ll see white Melburnians riding bikes, white Melburnians gardening, and white Melburnians drinking espresso coffee (fair trade). Feeling like you’re Making A Difference is a central pillar of white Melburnian culture. Whether or not you actually Make A Difference is irrelevant. The important thing is to appear as if you are doing so.

Fire-twirling
Since exercise and sport are something the wrong type of white Melburnians do, Melbourne white people must find ways to get around this and the answer is fire-twirling. It requires hand-eye co-ordination, dexterity, good reflexes and it’s slightly dangerous– just like sport! Yet fire-twirling does not require cardio fitness, so you won’t be building any annoying muscles or lung capacity, and it takes place at night meaning you won’t get a healthy tan. These characteristics are celebrated by the wrong type of white Melburnian. In fact, being fit is so anathema to the Melbourne White Person it is customary to say “well that’s my exercise for the day” after running for a tram. Feel free to lay on the hyperbole. Tell everybody it was your exercise for the week, the month or even the year! It will not sound out of place. It is also important to breathe heavily as you say this.

Tibetan Prayer Flags
You might wonder why staunch atheists openly display prayer flags. This is because Eastern religions that aren’t Islam appeal to white Melburnians. Melbourne white people love Peace, so they like religions they consider peaceful, such as Buddhism. It doesn’t even matter that many Buddhist countries are some of the most war-torn on Earth.

ACCA (Australian Centre of Contemporary Art)
White Melburnians love art, and since Melbourne is widely considered to be Australia’s art capital, it is very important to have a decent knowledge of at least one area of art. White Melburnians love ACCA because it is hard to get too. It’s not centrally located like ACMI (Australian Centre of the Moving Image) or the NGV (National Gallery of Victoria). But beware - if you overhear white Melburnians talking about ACCA, tread carefully. The worst mistake you could make at this point is confusing ACCA with Jason ‘Aka’ Akermanis, a star player for the Western Bulldogs football team. Remember, football is popular with the wrong type of Melbourne white people. If you make this mistake you will never be friends with a white Melburnian again.

Shanghai Dumpling House
White Melburnians love this place because it’s cheap, but mostly because it’s in an alley. The patronage is also about 15% Asian, which isn’t enough to freak out white Melburnians, but enough to make them feel as if they are escaping white culture. The owners like it too, because they know they can save money by reducing the amount of chili and other seasonings in their product, as the average white Melburnian discovered soy sauce in the mid nineties.

Hating on Sydney
White Melburnians are going to read this and say "What the hell is Sydney doing on this list? The only list I'd tolerate Sydney being on is a World's Shittest Cities List!" Et cetera et cetera. Then they'd bang on about how Sydneysiders traded culture and style for geography and climate two hundred years ago. They'd make the point that when Sydneysiders praise their city they only talk about factors outside of human control, such as weather and the beach and blah fucking blah. They would also argue that while Melbourne beaches aren't as pretty, at least they're not packed with British backpackers and race rioters. Then they'd go on about global warming and how in the future Melburnians will be able to grow avocadoes and bananas while Sydneysiders will get hurricanes and malaria. White Melburnians are so pathetic sometimes! I like Sydney. It's Australia's only global metropolis.

Earthchoice Dishwash Liquid
White Melburnians love anything that’s cheap and good for the environment. Even if it comes in plastic and contains the known skin irritant, sodium laureth sulphate. Earthchoice Dishwash Liquid is the Morning Fresh of our generation.

Cambodia, Laos and Vietnam
Tourism (‘travel’ in white Melburnian vernacular) is very important in white Melburnian culture because, like op shopping, it allows them to consume without feeling guilty. Because the Australian dollar is one of the strongest currencies in the region, a white Melburnian can feel like they are consuming less because they are only spending twenty to thirty dollars per day. Your status will be boosted by a visit to any of these countries, but doubled if you visit all of them and/or remain in the region for at least three months. Cambodia, Laos and Vietnam were recently war-torn, but have a robust tourist infrastructure in place, enabling you to pass yourself off as a swashbuckling adventurer in the jungles of South East Asia while enjoying the same level of customer service as Thailand and Bali (popular with the wrong type of white Melburnian). To put your travel credentials beyond doubt, make sure to purchase a Caution! Mines! Cambodia! tshirt.

Pronouncing Chile as 'Chil-AY'
Previously pronounced as 'chi-li', Melbourne white people now refer to the nation of Chile as 'chil-AY'. This sometimes also applies to Haiti, where it gets said as 'hi-AY-ti' or something like that. While the only Chilean I've met said 'chi-li', he also said he was going to put poison in my food, so I haven't met a reliable verifier. In any case, remember that white Melburnians are happy to mispronounce other places in the Americas, such as Maryland and Arkansas, so don't worry about those. Just make sure to emphasise the 'AY' parts of Latin American place names if you want to appear knowledgeable and worldly.

Pretending to Hate Cars
White Melburnians love road trips but hate cars. This is because road trips let them enjoy cars without feeling guilty. When a white Melburnian gets behind the wheel a type of alchemy occurs – for them the act of driving is magically different compared to when other white people do it. Their love of crude machinery from the early 1900s is sublimated in various ways – it’s a means to see Mexico or a way to save the forests of East Gippsland. This is similar to how it’s acceptable for white Melburnians to be in the Hungry Jacks drive-thru between the hours of 3am and 6am.

Movies That Make You Think
All white Melburnians are sophisticated and intellectual so they like movies that make them think. If you want to see an action movie just go by yourself. Don’t even mention it. White Melburnians will do this thing where they scrunch up their nose when you talk about action movies. Below is a transcript of a conversation between me (Ben) and a white Melburnian friend (WMF) when I asked if he wanted to see The Kingdom, an action movie set in Saudi Arabia starring Jamie Foxx.

Ben: Hey you wanna see The Kingdom?
WMF: Errrrrr, do you think it'll be good?
Ben: OF COURSE it will be good. It's an ACTION MOVIE!
WMF: Errrrr, it's gonna be terrible. It'll be racist and it'll be shit because Hollywood doesn't understand terrorism and Islam and Saudi Arabia and blah fucking blah.

But who does? Of course the message is going to be confusing and jumbled and insensitive. It's HOLLYWOOD! Hollywood doesn't even know shit about Hollywood. I'm not expecting intelligent and thoughtful insights into globalisation and terrorism in a post - 9\11 world because when I want that I go to a fucking library. Movies are about entertainment! Can’t you come with me anyway and just interpret the movie through Foucault’s power/knowledge thing?

Trackies
One of the most outrageous things a white Melburnian can do is wear their trackies outside. It's seriously a radical act for them. This is because trackies are comfortable, bland and still popular with the wrong type of white Melburnian, ergo - they are not obviously ironic. Irony takes time. It will take another five years before we can wear Limp Bizkit tshirts. Wear one now and everyone thinks you're a fan. So if you're hanging out with white Melburnians be prepared to hear them say things like: "I rolled out of bed at eleven so I just threw on my trackies!" Or, "I wore my trackies down Chapel street. I must have looked like I just rolled out of bed!" There is an implicit assumption that the wider community will care about their choice of pants. Stories about your trackies are conversation gold for white Melburnians. Just remember to act awestruck when they tell you theirs.

Pretending To Be A Nerd
Because it's uncool to acknowledge you're cool, and since making an effort to be cool is uncool, it's now cool for white Melburnians to pretend they are uncool.

The Monthly
Sort of like The New Yorker but four times less frequent and about half as interesting, White Melburnians read The Monthly because it makes them appear literary, which is kind of nerdy and therefore cool. Also, since it's published in Collingwood, most white Melburnians know someone who knows someone who works there. They will not hesitate to tell you this. But you're only allowed to act impressed if this someone is a member of the editorial staff.

Acknowledging the Wurundjeri
You might notice how very awkward white Melburnians sound while acknowledging the Wurundjeri. It's because they've been working up the courage to say that for two hundred years.

Churros
White Melburnians are too urbane for donuts but they eat churros because they love anything with a foreign sounding name. For example - yoga, latte, chai, chai latte, Al Qaeda and Franco Cozzo.

The World Section of The Age
Even though the World Section of The Age is mostly a snapshot of what the USA is doing, white Melburnians love it because it usually has colourful photographs of their favourite type of poor person (the ones who don't live in Australia).

The Windsor End of Chapel Street
Chapel Street is the continuum upon which Melbourne white people orient themselves. It is also a test. If you want to be friends with a white Melburnian you must openly dislike Chapel Street, but always throw in a caveat about the Windsor end being “alright.” The South Yarra end has the wrong type of white Melburnian, because they like cars instead of bikes, go to Bali instead of Cambodia, drink at clubs instead of pubs or bars, and they prefer designer labels from designers instead of designer labels from op shops. In white Melburnian culture, consumerism is bad except when it’s not. Since this doesn’t make sense, just say “the Windsor end is alright,” and you will be fine.

Notable Mentions
Triple R and PBS, Daniel Kitson, Copenhagen-Style Bike Lanes, David and Margeret, My Disco, Camberwell Market, Aesop, High Vibes, Degraves street, leggings, Edinburgh Gardens, Getting Kicked Out Of Pony.

What'd I miss?