Photo Credit: nickgraywfu
If you’ve never checked out the oktrends blog, you’re in for a treat. The company behind the blog, OKCupid, is an online dating site with a fun vibe and an extremely extensive, mostly young, diverse group of users. Like any other dating site, OKCupid is sitting on a virtual treasure trove of social data – but OKCupid isn’t afraid to use it. The blog’s most recent post focuses on some of the biggest cross-cultural questions out there, in fact, and uses some decent statistics to answer ‘em.
In their own words, with the typical tongue-in-cheek humor of the site:
What is it that makes a culture unique? How are whites, blacks, Asians, or whoever different from everybody else? What tastes, interests, and concepts define an ethnic group? And is there any way to make fun of other races in public and get away with it?
The majority of the post focuses on separating out short phrases and words that show up more often in one (self-identified) racial group’s profiles more than in other racial groups’ profiles. So, for example, sushi is pretty much as likely to show up in a white person’s profile as it is in a black person’s profile – but sashimi shows up in Asian people’s profiles much, much more often than it does in any other racial group’s profiles.
My first three thoughts after reading through the whole article were:
- Man, Aditya is not going to shut up about the Indian profiles’ average writing level any time soon.
- No wonder I’m attracted to Asian dudes – Calvin & Hobbes is a statistically distinct “like” for them!
- Why isn’t cricket in an even bigger font for Indian dudes?
That last refers to, of course, the statistically distinct “likes”/phrases in Indian guys’ profiles. You really aren’t going to be surprised by this list, I suspect:
I’m not going to spoil the whole post for you – go over to oktrends to find out what Indian women (or white women), on average, like, or the best way to tell the difference between black men & white men’s likes, or why you should always laugh at a latio’s jokes. And remember, guys, that it’s all meant with a bit of fun. 
8. September 2010 at 3:17 pm
It was interesting to me that Indian women on OK Cupid don’t like cricket or Hindi at all in a statistically significant way. Instead they appear to read pretty good books.
8. September 2010 at 3:22 pm
And they apparently like to travel – “my passport” is pretty high up there!
8. September 2010 at 6:41 pm
I read this earlier today and I thought it was great the biggest LOL I had was The Colour Purple in huge font for black women. I love this movie and every time its on cable my black female friends and I quote it to each other on facebook!
The thing that stuck out most to me is that white and black men were more likely to define themselves by interests where as Asian and Indian men use careers and degrees a lot.
Btw I met my A through OKCupid!
8. September 2010 at 10:52 pm
Ok, this was great!! Just another thing that makes me love OKCupid that much more.
I, also, i met my V on okc
9. September 2010 at 11:16 am
My husband sent this to me earlier this morning. Hilarious! Quite a few of my faves on the “white woman” chart. Was so funny to see Seinfeld (one of my husband’s favorite shows) on the “Indian Man” chart.
12. September 2010 at 3:52 am
They should have “Married with Children” up there on the Indian Men’s Likes.
It was Uncle Al Bundy that got me and my Indian buddies through the rigors of Grad School in the US. Without Uncle Al, no way, no how, would I be a Ph.D. in Engineering today.
You come home late at night from the engineering-department, all bent out of shape, because your latest and most promising engineering-idea proved to be a dud, and totally fizzled out, much like the ideas before it, thus taking along with it your hopes of earning an early Ph.D.
Not to worry. Crawl home to the apartment, make yourself some Maggi noodles, slosh the Maggi ketchup onto the Maggi noodles, turn on the TV, adjust the rabbit-ears (Indian grad-students don’t pay for cable-TV), and soon enough, Uncle Al would waft over the TV-waves, and, along with Peg, Kelly, Bud and Buck Bundy, would soothe away your worries.
Tomorrow ? Now, that would be another day, and a fesh new engineering-theory.
And that, boys and girls, is how we got through Grad School.
12. September 2010 at 10:28 pm
“Married with Children” would have ranked up there 15 years ago. More for Kelly Bundy than for Al Bundy.
And surprisingly, Indian guys are the only ones with a sport at the top of the list.
14. September 2010 at 9:09 pm
Love it – just love it…. Can’t say anything further.
15. September 2010 at 10:39 pm
gorigirl…you are the best gori in the blogosphere..good to cu back…
myindianlove and whiteindianhousewife act like jerks.
23. September 2010 at 3:45 am
Don’t know about myindianlove, but whiteindianhousewife, in my humble opinion, is rather fair and honest in her comments ……..
23. September 2010 at 3:43 am
So, what’s the difference between Asians and Indians (after all, India is part of the Asian continent)? Or are “Asians” defined as people who come from the “Far East” i.e. East Asia and South-East Asia? If so, what about a third generation Singaporean of Indian origin? To which category does he/she belong – Asian or Indian? Just curious about the American thought process on this topic ……..
23. September 2010 at 9:22 pm
All of these people self-identify. There are a number of choices with regards to race on OKC, some identify as Indian, other as Asian. My DBF identified as Asian even though he is from Pakistan.
5. November 2010 at 11:47 am
the site is not accessible. Guess I’ll be missing out on this one. I’m probably not the typiccal white woman, but maybe he is the typical Asian or Indian. Hmmm, I wonder what made them separate out “indian” and nothing else. So, would someone from Bangladesh or Pakistan decide to be Asian (because in the broad context they are) or “indian” (because historically…..) you know the story.
9. October 2011 at 2:52 pm
=v= I’m glad Gandhi outranks Ayn Rand. Why do the guys go for “veg” while the women spell out “vegetarian?”