Pho

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

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

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

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

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

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

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.