#76 Bottles of Water
February 26, 2008 by clander
Water seems like a fairly simple concept. You turn on the tap, put glass underneath, and drink. Sadly, it is not this simple for white people.
On the whole, they are unable to put a glass under a tap and just drink. In fact, this is such a strange concept that the city of New York had to launch a rather large PR campaign to show white people that it was possible to actually drink the water that comes out of the tap!
Up until this point, white people were consuming most of their water in the form of expensive bottles like Fiji, Aquafina and Dasanai. To this day, many white people continue to get their water in this fashion, and it is important to be aware about how your choice of water can say a lot about who you are.
Logically, you would assume that drinking the most expensive premium bottled water (Fiji and Voss) would be enough to show the world that you are too good for tap water. And a few years ago, you would have been right. But lately, advanced white people have been getting very upset about all of the waste that comes with drinking 15-20 bottles per week.
The leading edge of white people have started to use sturdier, refillable bottles. But do not assume this is from the tap. Most white people need to run their water through some sort of filter (Brita or PUR) before they put it into their bottle. This allows them to feel good about using a refillable bottle, but it also makes it more complicated, which they also like.
Previously, the gold standard was the Nalgene bottle, however recent studies have shown the plastic can leak toxins into the water. Currently, white people on the cutting edge are really into metal bottles of water with a twist cap. It is recommended that you buy one of these as soon as possible.
Having one will give you precious leverage over any white person who is drinking from a plastic bottle. “Oh bottled water? really? I mean it’s cool, but I kind of thought you cared about the earth.” If you see someone drinking a Fiji water, you do have the opportunity to go in for the kill. “Do you know that your bottle of water has a bigger carbon footprint than me? I think they were originally going to call it ‘aboriginal blood’ but that bottle was as close as they could get. You know, legally.”
Again, this should only be used in extreme situations.
Following your confrontation, the white person is likely to have a metal bottle just like yours. If this happens, there will be an implicit pact whereby they will do favors for you provided you do not tell everyone they got their bottle after you.
NOTE: whoever makes the metal bottles did not pay for the link. They just had the best pictures.
first!!!
i wish idiots were outlawed from commenting.
seriously. no joke.
FIJI water is a carbon NEGATIVE company. http://www.fijigreen.com in case anyone cares.
Just because a company pursues carbon offsets for their production doesn’t make it all that green. Wouldn’t it be better to not emit the carbon in the first place. I do think it’s better if we offset what we do produce, but come on… it’s water. We have one of the best water supplies in the world here in the US. Why spend the resources to import it?
Agreed - “Carbon negative?” I’m no hippie, but like everyone else in San Francisco around me, that person is like all my neighbors who have Priuses and think they’re saving the environment by driving. Just because your car gets 10 more gallons a mile than my Civic doesn’t mean you’re better than me - you’re still polluting, man. Take the bus to work, drink tap water, and then we’ll see who’s really helping.
then what would you do?
#77: abortions. white people like having abortions.
black people like to have kids to get on wellfare
also, white people like writing to postsecret about their abortions.
white people don’t wanna be dehydrated.
i’m betting you’ve seen this, but the opposite and yet exact same thing as “stuff white people like” is “black people love us!“
doses
No joke—I saw a lady drinking from the sigi bottle and i thought it was a vase. no joke. wow, you learn something new every single day.
it’s official…this is the best blog ever. I haven’t found one ounce out of untrue information in a single post. Spectacular. I hope this blog never ends.
Maybe so, but I have never seen a metal water bottle in my life. As far as the carbon footprint my Dasani bottle leaves: the environment can blow me. I won’t be alive long enough for the really bad stuff to start happening and I have no kids. I think I’ll burn my plastic bottle when I am done with it.
Mr Cheney, don’t you have some work you should be doing?
If it weren’t clearly satire, I’d have to disagree. I’m white, and almost none of this applies to me.
This list is only meant for yuppies. The vast majority of white people are exempt from this.
But seriously, people gotta stop buying a bottle of water shipped from lord knows where. Buy one and fill it up when it gets empty. If you live in a city with a lot of chlorine in the water supply, just fill up containers and let them sit unopened over night.
I don’t mean to be sound bossy, but watching people trot around with a perfectly good container with no plan other than to toss it out (don’t be fooled; recycling is only slightly better than throwing something in the garbage) when when they’re done drinking the renewable resource within deeply offends the values I grew up with.
you know, that whole whoring your blog out to advertising happened so quickly i barely noticed it.
There are certain places where the tap water tastes a lot better after being put through a Brita filter, like Phoenix.
what about kissing dogs on the mouth? white people love doing that!!
Yeah that’s NASTY. And letting the dog sleep in your bed.
Now c’mon… that’s flippin’ INSANE.
This is great - really great! I commend you on being on top of the current white wave and all the design and marketing behind it. Brilliant! I am writing about this blog on my own blog about art, design and marketing - which I do while sitting in my ergonomic chair in front of my imac drinking organic soy milk and eating gourmet dark chocolate (side note: possible topic about gourmet foods: cheese, wine, chocolate and coffee - mostly from France) from Whole Foods.
I just read The Power of Now and I loved it, so maybe that could be a topic … “new age” spiritual leaders. You may want to check my blog for future references too - I seem to be pretty white, but not everything applies.
already got one. That was so last year.
To be fair though, bottle water started in Japan. So it only makes sense white people have taken ownership of it now.
Fabulous! These posts are freaking HILARIOUS!
It’s so true! white people love ‘em some bottled water!
YEP!! And how about the “smart” brands? That stuff that tastes like waterd down kool-aid, 370 calories with the vitamin content of half of a Flintstones chewable.
$4.85 at my corner bo-deli.
There’s a white person born every minute!
I had no idea SIGG bottles were popular. Damn, I give up…..
i guess i am a white guy. metal bottle with screw cap, filled with britta-filtered H20. guilty!
Seriously. Set up a paypal account. I’ll voluntarily give you guys $10. I have never gotten this much enjoyment out of a website (and unlike porn, there’s no diminishing returns). Keep up the good work.
Usually these reusable water bottles are uniquely branded with stickers - i.e.: showing how outdoorsey they are through REI or ski resorts, using alternative bands stickers to show how non-conformist they are or Obama in ‘08 to show their support in a public manner.
Ironically, white people live in the part of town where the tap water is safe to drink.
http://awaitingtenure.wordpress.com/
This is a complete treasure-trove for future cultural anthropologists.
Whitey loves him some Al Gore, too.
#77: observing the whiteness of other whites. take this blog for example.
Yep! White people carry around bottled water everywhere.
Ha, I just bought one of those metal bottles yesterday, for the exact reasons listed in the article. Looks like I fit in, suckas!
I heard you on NPR (of course) today and googled right over! Love the blog and will be here regularly from now on! I’m all over that metal bottle and will quit putting my filtered water in plastic because I do worry about the landfills and my health.
COTTAGES COTTAGES COTTAGES COTTAGES COTTAGES
White ppl & COTTAGES. C’mon!
Of course, the metal bottles are lined with plastic, to keep the substrate from making the water taste like…metal. If polycarbonate bottles leaked plasticizer into their contents, which they don’t, then these metal bottles wouldn’t be any better.
The only way to escape this would be to line the bottles with glass, like with thermos bottles, or with 24 karat gold, which doesn’t impart taste to its contents. I predict this will be the next craze, until someone notices that gold is mined with cyanide.
Don’t forget about all of the mercury used in gold mining as well.
polycarbonate is not the same plastic used for nalgene bottles dum dum.
Whites and others in the elitist class are dehydophobics!
In fairness, some states, i.e. Florida, have gross H2O. But on the east coast and Cali? Good shit from the faucet.
did anyone else notice that this one sounded like it was written by someone else? probably wasnt, but the tone was different. made it not as funny, but hey, 98.68% aint bad.
Fantastic post. The thing about toxins from plastic bottles was complete BS, actually, but I’m sure that was still a large part of the driving force causing folks to buy metal bottles.
so incredibly true. this is hilarious
Golf balls in picture.
White people love golf.
If you like your water with tasty contaminants and added chemicals, I say go with the tap water. Otherwise filter it or get it elsewhere from natural sources (unfortunately plastic bottled).
Or be an activist, recycle those plastics, drink from the fossil fuel pumped chemically laden water plants, and continue driving your suv to the mall with a clear conscience.
That post was sub-par.
Right now you are in the phase where your blog is too popular, and you are making jokes in a carbon copy of the voice that you once had, rather than in the actual voice that you once had.
This will continue for a while.
But eventually you will find your voice again, rather than writing in the way that you think people want to read (as you currently do).
Family Guy went through a similar period (after its return from hiatus), but they too got their voice back.
#27 - does having a subscription to ‘Cottage Living’ + daydreaming about one day buying and renovating a cottage count?
as a matter of fact, upscale magazine subscriptions are ’stuff white people like’ i.e. Architectural Digest, Martha Stewart, Real Simple, Dwell, Wallpaper, Gourmet. very important to leave these magazines on coffee tables + other areas where they can be seen.
in our house, water from the tap is used ONLY to wash dishes, or wet a sponge/kitchen towel. never, EVER used for drinking. not even with a filter. although, our stainless steel refrigerator has filtered water + ice cubes. i use the cubes. don’t drink the water. and we all know how white people LOVE their stainless steel appliances!
Uhhhh all but 10 things on here were already true about me (I HATE JUNO) and now that you have this bottles of water thing up I just want to call everyone I know and tell them because I have 11 bottles of Smart Water, 1 bottle of Fiji, and 3 of Voss in my room right now (none refilled with tap water, mind you) and this is just so ironic (I love irony) that I can’t wrap my mind around it. Jesus christ.
i don’t think you’ve lost your voice.
i love this site, and even though I’m not white, I definitely identify with a lot of the stuff and have observed similar behavior in people i know.
this blog is so spot-on about everything. love all the posts keep up the good work!
Loved you on _Talk of the Nation_ today! Yay, NPR! More whitefolks stuff.
I buy 2.5 gallon containers of distilled water because the tap water here tastes gross.
..oh yeah! White people invented computers and the internet and just about everything else that the rest of humanity loves so much that they leave the beautiful places they are from to be a part of white culture.
Maybe the white guy that wrote this blog can explain one thing to the rest of us. When I’m riding to and from work because, as a white guy I’m trying to reduce my carbon footprint, how do I stick my head under a tap?
The water bottle was invented, probably by some white guy, so that one could have water while away from the kitchen sink!
Cool hey!!
Just so you all know this blog is written by a white guy…
The jokes on you!!
you must not hear the word “satire” very often.
I live in western Massachusetts which is ground zero for exactly the type of white people you describe on this blog. I used to just call them the limosine liberals and my patience is wearing thin. Thanks for the laughs and insight.
This website is…horrible, crude, offensive, and badly misinformed.
Because, of course, you’ve made a blog lampooning the habits of idle upper-middle-class white people, and 76 posts in you have yet to mention tattoos.
feminism
plastic surgery
bestiality
blogging
binge drinking
extreme sport
JUST DO IT!
Tap water is delicious. I like the added fluoride! It helps me keep my teeth in good shape. Most White People keep their teeth clean by utilizing their own sense of self-satisfaction, I’m still perfecting that technique.
funny and yet so true
Re: #39
Link to Talk of the Nation segment on Stuff White People Like:
http://www.npr.org/templates/story/story.php?storyId=33372288
White people like:
Blogs
collecting as a culture: Records, DVDs, Toys…
Criterion Collection
Burning Man
Outdoor multi-day music festivals
Frisbee Golf
working out with a personal trainer/ barry’s boot camp
IKEA
Mail order anything
Infomercials
info-tainment
celeb gossip
cheese
big salads
blogs about white people
artisan bread
food network
1080p HD
#77 - white people love providing their opinion on everything online that has a section available for commenting
#78 - white people love irony
#79 - white people love self-deprecating humor
really doesn’t matter what race the writer(s?) is. Still hilariously accurate.
white ppl like voyeurism online
#34- Actually, bottled water is barely regulated and shown to be no safer than tap water, which is regulated. In some cases, bottled water is simply tap water with a few things added.
Check it out: http://www.thinkoutsidethebottle.org/
You think there was a time… maybe 10 or 20 years ago where white people didn’t have to carry water with them EVERYWHERE THEY GO? The fear of dehydration is way too strong in the white person.
haven’t people been using tin canteens for ages?
I have a bottle with a built in Brita filter.
You should write a post about how white people love to make up words to be cool. ex: “hipster-ness”, “eco-friendly-ness”
spot on. white ppl strive for vacuous individuality because they have that priviledge.
btw, white folks LOVE cuckoldry. mos def would be ideal. editing the footage on their mac is icing.
White people like….
magazines
Oprah
The Office
Smart phones
Google
Facebook
barbecues
Your blog has organically created such a movement that I’m starting the official countermovement:
I buy those expensive, plastics-heavy bottled waters you describe and use them to fill up my own larger metal water bottle. Then I repurpose the empty water bottles as planters for seeds of doubt, hopelessness, disenfranchisement, and poverty which I water with my metal bottle until they are ready for harvest, at which point I transport them into centers of urban decay and drop them off on the porches of mixed race children in bad homes.
These days, anything can be sold and marketed, even fresh ice and refrigerators to Inuits. Similarly, supermarkets - or black holes - like walmart and tesco, can make and sell just about anything, including taking on microsoft and adobe:
http://theworldofm.wordpress.com/2008/02/23/tesco-new-world-order/
although they wont win the battle, they will definitely get a chunk, methinks