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?
These are big questions, and here's how we answered them.
We selected 526,000 OkCupid users at random and divided them into groups by their (self-stated) race. We then took all these people's profile essays (280 million words in total!) and isolated the words and phrases that made each racial group's essays statistically distinct from the others'.
For instance, it turns out that all kinds of people list sushi as one of their favorite foods. But Asians are the only group who also list sashimi; it's a racial outlier. Similarly, as we shall see, black people are 20 times more likely than everyone else to mention soul food, whereas no foods are distinct for white people, unless you count diet coke.

Using this kind of analysis, we were able find the interests, hobbies, tastes, and self-descriptions that are specially important to each racial group, as determined by the words of the group itself. The information in this article is not our opinion. It's data, aggregated from the essays of half a million real people.
So here's the real stuff white people like.
Click on the icons to toggle between men/women.
In general, I won't comment too much on these lists, because the whole point of this piece is to let the groups speak for themselves, but I have to say that the mind of the white man is the world's greatest sausagefest. Unless you're counting Queens of the Stone Age, there is not even one vaguely feminine thing on his list, and as far as broad categories go we have: sweaty guitar rock, bro-on-bro comedies, things with engines, and dystopias.
As for the interests of white women, you have romance novels, some country music, and a broad selection of Good Housekeeping type stuff. It's also amazing the extent to which their list shows a pastoral or rural self-mythology: bonfires, boating, horseback riding, thunderstorms. I remind you that OkCupid's user base is almost all in large cities, where to one degree or another, if you find yourself doing much of any of these things, civilization has come to an end.
If I had to choose over-arching themes for white people's lists, for men, I'd go with "frat house" and for women, "escapism." Whether one begot the other is a question I'll leave to the reader.
Stuff black people like.
Hopefully it's been obvious that the font-size of a phrase indicates the relative frequency with which it appears. So, toggling between black men and black women above, you can see that while soul food is important to both, it's really, really important to the women. In fact, soul food and black women is the single strongest phrase/group pair we found.
The above lists also make it clear that, regardless of whether Jesus himself was black, his most vocal followers definitely are. Religious expressions weren't among the top phrases for any of the other races, but they're all over the place for black men and (especially) black women, for whom 13 of the top 50 phrases are religious. Black people are more than twice as likely than average to mention their faith in their profiles.

Finally, it's worth noting that of the four lists we've seen so far, black women's is the only one to explicitly include someone of another race: Justin Timberlake.
Double finally, how bold is it that I am cool is the second most typical phrase for black men?
OkTrends Racial Stereotype #1
In the course of researching this article and, in particular, comparing white guys to black guys, a handy shortcut occurred to me:
If you're trying to figure out if white dudes like something, put fucking in the middle, and say it out loud. If it sounds totally badass, white dudes probably love it. Let's see this principle in practice:

Stuff Latinos like.
Music and dancing—merengue, bachata, reggaeton, salsa—are obviously very important to Latinos of both genders. The men have two other fascinating things going on: an interest in telling you about their sense of humor (i'm a funny guy, very funny, outgoing and funny, etc.) and an interest in industrial strength ass-kicking (mma, ufc, boxing, marines, etc.) Basically, if a Latin dude tells you a joke, you should laugh.
OkTrends Racial Stereotype #2
El chiste de knock-knock:

Latinas' interests are fairly typical for a dating site: you got friends, career, education, movies, music, a few physical details, and, oh yeah...morbid fear. We dug further into I'm terrified of (on their list at #42) and found which words typically came next. It's mostly insects and "the dark", though one expert tautologist is "terrified of being scared" and another woman is "terrified of Martians."
Stuff Asians like.
As you can see, both Asian men and women choose I'm simple as their go-to self-description. Contrast this to black men's I am cool and Latinos' I'm a funny guy. It's also interesting that Asian men very often mention their specific heritage (taiwan, korea, singapore, vietnam, china) while Asian women don't.
OkTrends Racial Stereotype #3
Combing through these lists, you can see the different ways women use cosmetics:
- White women show off their eyes (mascara is #5 on their list).
- Black women show off their lips (lip gloss, #7).
- Latinas show off both (mascara, #18 / lip gloss, #22).
- Asian women, however, show off their practicality (lip balm, #48).
So far, I've gone through racial groups in order of their prominence on OkCupid. For brevity (I know this is the internet), I'll present the remaining lists without foolish commentary. You can click any of the links to reveal them inline.
Stuff Indians like.
Stuff Middle Easterners like.
Stuff Pacific Islanders like.
We'll be revisiting race later this month, with a statistical investigation of interracial dating, and we're almost finished with the article on (bi-)sexuality we promised last time. Thanks for reading, everyone.
Till next time,

It is just another statistic information and I do not see any offense. My nationality is rare so I do not see myself anywhere but it was nice to see what other people who belong to different cultures think. This is not about race or nationality actually, this is more about different cultures we all belong to. Very nice article, very interesting computer selection! Computer scanned so many people! Amazing! I wish we could type different ideas and computer captured some other situation… Would be very interesting!
So this is why I’m wasting my time on OKCupid… Besides Ghostbusters, which I don’t even mention, I pretty much don’t like anything that anybody of any race on here likes.
I am secure, however, that this is culling a word-count from a relatively small sample and isn’t really reflective of much of anything.
I think this study is interesting, but the results don’t seem too overwhelmingly different than I would have guessed, which is somewhat surprising. I think studies like this are important in their own respect, but should not be taken too seriously. People need to remember that studies like this represent overall group trends and does not define each individual that makes up each of these groups.
Study methods might also be evaluated. For instance, a study like this was done only of OKCupid profiles; this was not mentioned as a flaw at all. The majority of OKC users, I would assume, are all single and/or looking for someone, which makes those people a good random sample of OKCupid users, but not necessarily a good random sample of people or even of internet daters in general (because all the people from the sample were taken from one very specific place).
However, for the sake of efficiency, I think the methods used were well-selected. In the future, OKTrends should be more specific in pointing out the limitations of their studies as to not give people the wrong idea. After all, there are a lot of impressionable people out there.
Brinidead says:
September 12, 2010 at 6:48 am
Yeah, all white people are illiterate and stupid and bad. And it’s ok to say that, because, thank goodness, we live in an enlightened, civilised society where it’s ok for everyone to bash the percieved dominant group.
You could just have easily made a snide insight about the data that came from any of the races, but don’t let the truth get in the way of a good story.
And before you get all “Yeah, well it’s about time white people had some payback, they get everything else” (which is the typical response to any white apologism), Ghandi said “the truth can not hurt a cause that is just”. Why paint dark-grey as black, why misrepresent the truth to make your points about injustice. Isn’t the real injustice out there good enough for you? I’m sick of beatups.
^^this guy….must be protestant.
Adam, apparently you’ve never passed a class in statistics, and you probably haven’t any idea why that would be relevant, so my having made that point might just be moot.
In an unrelated (mostly) note, I’d be more interested in seeing one divided into quadrants with smart + not / educated + not. Also: income, region, Political leanings?
Christian!! you are “Da Man”!! if you stop by Chicago, Id buy you a beer!!
No worries on the negative feedback from people, there is a reason why we are still single, if you get my drift …LOL!!!
Nora,
A rare ethnicity? What is it?
It would have been good to look only at Americans (if you didn’t do so), or to break down between Americans and other nationalities. I doubt, for example, ‘the red sox’ are the #1 obsession of white women worldwide, i.e. the differences would be just as large between Americans/non-Americans as between the different races represented.
This is pretty interesting stuff… I mean of course, people, you have to take it with a grain of salt. If we’re going by these stats, I’m an Asian girl and only a little bit white.
Thanks OkTrends for more amusing data!
This is the most RACIST god-awful report I’ve ever encountered.
“What makes black people different from white people?”
Whoever wrote this is trying as hard as possible to stereotype.
“Oh, white people drink PBR and play golf, and black people want money and listen to rap.”
I’ve been looking for a reason to delete my OkCupid account, and now I have a more valid one than ever.
Could someone please tell me, what is the point of pointing out differences in VERY BROAD generalizations about black and white people?
I disagree with the part about what people of different races like. When you meet someone who has a brain, they usually differ from the average person who likes all the same crap everyone else does and the stuff on that list doesn’t apply to them. They’re not into something just because everyone else is and have better and more developed and mature tastes. They hate nascar cause its a painfully idiotic sport with cars that just go in circles, golf is boring as hell (Unless someone crashes their cart into a lake), sound garden sucks… and there’s so much more I could say. And seriously… Harley Davidson!? I’d rather have a 200 mph Kawasaki crotch rocket!
I will say this though… I’m getting really sick and tired of American Women, especially white girls. The ones I usually meat are either too skinny or too over weight, can’t carry a conversation, they have the social skills of a squirrel with a head wound, the attention span of a ferret on crack, the maturity of a 15 year old, and are totally incapable of a REAL relationship. They say they are, but then they jump in bed with the first asshole who comes along. And they all date assholes who treat them like crap! When I do actually meet the rare girl who’s perfect… she’s either too busy, she meets someone else, or something comes up and I never hear from her again. The hot girls only date guys who have nice cars and make a lot of money.
Although I will admit, mountain biking is the shit. Its a great sport that keeps you fit, and its challenging, slightly dangerous, and fun! You can even customize your ride, and its not expensive to do that. I’m more into the extreme mountain biking my self! But I won’t be riding any time soon, I sprained the entire left side of my left foot.
Doc warned me to stay off it.

The middle eastern interest in Nickelback scares the bejeezus out of me.
WHY!?!?!?!?!?!
Hilarious article. Ofcourse it should be taken lightly …
and shouldn’t it really be
The REAL ‘Stuff White People would like others to know about them’.
It is a dating site – how honest are we about everything?
Very interesting as long as people keep the limitations in mind. For example, Latinos have the “lowest” level of writing… or, hmmm… maybe they’re just the most likely users to not have English as their first language?
Weird how Indian guy’s have Ayn Rand as a common interest and Indian girl’s have “social justice”… can see that causing a few problems. And Middle Eastern girl’s have “different cultures” as by far their biggest “interest marker.” Could that have something to do with the fact that, for example, women from Gulf countries can’t even travel abroad without a husband or dad’s legal permission?
Finally, it’s interesting how many of these markers are things that people are not really interested in, but have just been presented as cultural touchstones, for example (mostly) female novelists of African-American, Latin, or Indian background who wrote a book that was accepted by NPR-type culture, those books/authors become their “cultural touchstones.”
Of course white people (hello!) also have this, but in our case it’s not so much books that other races have accepted as really, really terrible cultural products that other races can’t be bothered to accept, i.e. Dave Matthews Band, phish, Tom Clancy, Kenny Chesney, etc.
On behalf of white people, I’m very sorry world for these horrible, horrible representations of “our” culture : P
Last thought, this “religious people are dumb” BS… quite a lot of personal and anecdotal experiences lead me to believe that non-religious people are usually just much more motivated by the need to justify themselves / feel superior and therefore would write more (and more formally) on a dating site profile. (“Oh my, how clever!”)
Also, people who don’t appear to be very expressive or thoughtful are the same kind of people who won’t bother upsetting the status quo by leaving behind a traditional religious definition for an “N/A” that they then have to go on and on about defining.
I doubt these “less intelligent” (by your standards, not mine) people are that religious though.
Interesting information, just in case you need some tips to know better different persons depending on their racial and cultural behaviors, so you can understand what they like or dislike…
The power of information and knowledge…
Your study has a crucial flaw; there is NO SUCH THING AS “WHITE CULTURE”.
Unlike African-Americans or Latinos, people with Caucasian skin do not all share the same cultural backgrounds. I was raised by my grandparents, who were second generation Russian-German immigrants. I have nothing in common with the blue-blood Ivy Leaguers.
Asians are another group you might want to pay much closer attention to what culture they come from. There are a big cultural differences between Chinese, Japanese, Filiponos, etc
If this article weren’t so unbelievably distasteful, the sheer level of tactlessness would be hilarious. Unfortunately its just a depressing read.
For example: “But Asians are the only group who also list sashimi; it’s a racial outlier”
I think what the author has done here is confuse culture and race in quite spectacular fashion.
Racism – “A belief or doctrine that inherent differences among the various human races determine cultural or individual achievement”
Racist article is racist
Congratulations
Am I the only one who thinks that white girls liking “diet coke” is funny? I mean I like it too but I didn’t put it on my Dating Profile…
Also, do my people like Soul Food to eat or Soul Food the movie? Either way we like it A LOT!
They left out a huge statistical value/variable… Those of us who decided not to choose an “ethnicity” or what you all wrongly call a “race”… “Race” has to do with genus therefore representing an entirely different animal. It has been determined that we are all of the same genus Homo-Erectus therefore we are all of the same race the human race. I my self am a mix of Irish, Italian, and native American which are all mixes of other gene pools. I don’t Identify my self as white and I think people who identify themselves as white, or black are ignorant… Your identity is a lot deeper than one word. I think that the stats represented were taken from simple people thus creating odd misrepresented/misinterpreted results.
I think if okcupid is serious about making non bias statistical data they need to do more homework. Not to mention use broader scale algorithms it seems like they got all the data from a hand full of people in Massachusetts.
I’m glad Indians were included this time!!! Someone else might have already posted this but I would think a post dealing with ethnicities would use “East Asian” instead of “Asian” (since Indians are Asians…)
As a black woman who was married twice before to white men, I do see something relevant in this article. It is not all encompassing, of course. I don’t think it is supposed to be. Even in this day and age we must all agree that there is a still a cultural divide. I don’t fit the mold of what some would try to fit me into as a black female. I know others of various races that don’t fit what is supposed to be their mold either. I’ve dated blacks and whites. I am in no way prejudiced but I understand that there is a difference. Being different doesn’t mean it is a bad thing. Different can be exciting and extremely fun to explore. Try not to look at the article in a negative light. Be open-minded. It could actually be a means of introducing you into the wonderful world of another culture (although I admit, a rather shallow look). But, hey! You’ve got to start somewhere!
This is so lame, and stupid and very unhelpful. In fact it’s a downright lie. But I’m the sole one saying nay to this. I just hope some misguided white or asian girl sees this and thinks it’s for real and grills me in weird mexican terms I have no idea what’s what.
@Ryland
“Whoever wrote this is trying as hard as possible to stereotype.”
No they’re not, they are simply providing an analysis of data collected from 526,000 OkCupid members … like stated in the first line of the article. In fact the “point” and thesis for the article is well articulated in the opening paragraph as well.
“We then took all these people’s profile essays (280 million words in total!) and isolated the words and phrases that made each racial group’s essays statistically distinct from the others’.”
Whether you liked or disagreed with the resulting data is a moot point. OkCupid did not create it, you and I, and everyone on this site did. How are you going to hate OkCupid for pointing out data provided by its users? Might want to relax and think it over.
@Misthios lol I was noticing that and wondering about that myself ^_^
Please please please repeat the word clouds by quintile of reading proficiency…oh please!!!
“Is there a Comic Sans version of the Bible? There really should be.”
AHAHAAHAHAHAAAAA!!!!!! That just might be the funniest thing I’ve read in a long time, especially when considering the data presented. Hilarious!
The Coleman-Liau Index is a coarse measure of writing ability. It can be fooled by a writer’s style. Dashiell Hammett would score poorly, but that wouldn’t adequately reflect his skill.
In contrast, a poor writer — one addicted to sentence fragments, commas, and ten-dollar words — would score well using this method.
The comments made in this article are offensive and somewhat racist/sexist. I think it would be better to share the facts and omit the commentary. Statistics don’t show much and you shouldn’t make some of the generalizations made here. Although, everyone has a freedom of speech.
This is exactly why I’m ashamed to be white. Nascar…….? Oh god, I’m glad I live in 2010’s “Least manliest city” less nascar and shotguns
They should do a chart on the trends of people most frequently oppressed by society. Like how much of each ethnic group is more likely to be oppressed because they are more prone to things such as poverty? I think the religion one shows this
Not going to sift through older comments to see if it’s already been said, but..
Perhaps it’s just that atheists are more likely to boast about how smart they perceive themselves to be while other people “dumb down” their profiles (for lack of a better term) to be more relatable to other people.
Jesus, when did Atheists start getting so damn religious? Seems every comment from a non-believer here is a litany on how victimized they are. The problem with religion isn’t rooted in whether a god does or does not exist- that’s an awfully stupid belief to latch your identity to- the problem with religion stems from the hubris of believing your group’s belief-system is more right than any other. Loud atheists, your world-view reeks of the same ignorance and arrogance as any religious fundamentalist. Mobbing together under the banner of science is just as ignorant and destructive as mobbing under the banner of god. If you’d like to appear enlightened, I’d suggest you stop mobbing together and preaching so damn much.
Anywho, on the subject of mobs, this article is hilarious. I believe this poster sums up the truth very well:
TJ says:
September 12, 2010 at 11:43 pm
Perhaps this should be entitled “What group X says to try to get laid” instead of “What group X likes”.
What goes on at OKCupid is really nothing more than a factory-efficient exchange of personal resumes under the guise of “virtual dating” to make the concept appear more digestible. What do people do on resumes? They lie deeper than their grandma’s graves. The whole point of a resume is to embellish and make yourself as “selectable” as possible. The frustration with these “stereotypes” should not be directed at the data, but rather in the seeming fact that people feel like they need to mold themselves into stereotypes to feel selectable.
We provide the BS and OKTrends creates a lovely mirror of it. If you’re offended by this information perhaps its because one of these charts reflects a bit too closely to the kind of image you bandy about here. Besides, getting offended over a stereotype is an awfully tacky and cheap way to get attention and hold power over others.
I’m an individual, just like everybody else! hahaha
That was amazing. No wonder the religious portion of our country hates atheists so much- They say religion’s a myth AND they’re incredibly smart.
The line about the “self-mythology” of white women is precious. Apparently Christian Rudder doesn’t think “thunder storms” happen in “large cities.” And apparently Christian thinks that a person has to actively participate in activities like bonfires and boating on a daily basis in order to legitimately claim such activities as favorites. White kids in “large cities” never go to camp or on family vacation? Or go to college in a small town? Hello?! And apparently Christian thinks that all “large cities” are like midtown Manhattan or downtown LA… Yep, no “large cities” have suburbs where you might be able to ride horses. So, while this little experiment is somewhat interesting, it seems that people like Christian Rudder just can’t stop dealing in stereotypes and silly, unthinking observations.
Ryland – Have you deleted your account yet? Just wondering. Love, Mike.
This is a bad-fucking-ass piece of data. (Can you guess who I am from that? White, but Jewish and Atheist, but more than Atheist as this doesn’t embody my lack of “belief” in anything but the physical). Truly though. People claim that stereotypes are a negative thing, that they over generalize people without leaving “individuality” in tact. That’s just bullshit. If it is true that 9 times out of 10 a certain chemical reacts in a certain way with another chemical, doesn’t it seem pretty fair to assume that the chemical will react that way? Science as we all know involves observing phenomena and making conclusions based on those observations. And if the general theme is a certain way, we should conclude that way is the way of things for a particular phenomenon. So hooray for science and stereotype away, you’re probably right at least 90 percent of the time.
LOL
Hahaha! I really enjoyed this! And all bullshit aside, stereotypes had to come from SOMEWHERE.
Real white girl needs a big tight cock that white men dont have.. ha ha i am in Australia and i can see why white women are turning lesbians in an exponential manner…
I have to say im going to keep my account around just so i can read more of these rather amusing studies. Before all you people get bent out of shape, statistics isnt a science, it isnt a crystal ball, even if this the stats were statistically significant it just gives a general sense out a set of data in this case ours. Keep pumping out these studies okcupid.
Hmm something odd in these stats – they could just be rubbish analysis anyway. They look like what’s called relative indexes, not absolutes – ie you’re only looking for the things that are realatively different vs. the norm, not things that are absolutely high or low. What that means in normal-speak is that if 2% of white people say “i like my red hair” and only 0.5% of anyone else says it, “i like my red hair” gets a relative index of 400% (2/0.5) – which means it scores REALLY high and we are all supposed to think that liking red hair is a defining characteristic of white people. but it’s not. It’s just that a very few white people like their red hair and no other people do (cos they don’t have it).
So you’ve just got some dodgy use of statistics…?
I think you could differentiate between “white” people from Europe and “white” people from the US – it’d DEFINITELY be statistically relevant.
Personally, I was VERY amused by the statistic on Reading & Writing proficiency in relation to one’s religious convictions. Of course, that pretty much re-emphasized my prejudice against American fundamentalist Christians, but oh well… they REALLY have it coming. Creationism, anyone?
Will okcupid ever have ask their customers if they are looking for a Black or White person as a potential friend or dating partner. As a Blackman I find most people in your system would perfer not to date Blacks or socialize at this time.I am sure there are some but how do you contact with those people?
I laughed so hard at the results of this analysis.
I can’t argue with the results because fact can be stranger than fiction. Great work guys (and girls) on showing us a different and more fact-based view of the world in which we live. I love reading these articles!
A key point is missing here! This is not necessarily the thing these people like, but the things they THINK they should say about themseleves to best attract the desired person. Basically white dudes think white women want an ultra-masculine guy, black dudes think women want a cool, christian guy with no kids, asian guys think women want a simple, successful guy, etc.
I would be curious to see this repeated based on race AND sexual preference. I am betting gay white guys present themseleves differently than straight white guys.
Fun, and very interesting. The writing level/religiosity plot especially. It says something about where the country is headed. It would be interesting to see that shown alongside the numbers of people in each group (lots of Christians with a wide range of writing levels, I suspect, and fewer Muslims, more highly educated). Also, correlate with race. Blacks, according to the analysis, are very religious.
Interestingly, I looked at the likes of black, white, and latino males and I like an equal amount of things from each category. (I myself am latino.) I coincide with Asian males only 50% as much as the other three. Hmm…
Race has no place in the whole dating,responding,caring about,ect.Never ceases to astonish me,bisa that is!!!!!!!!
i was wondering how long it would take before it was scientifically (ok, statistically) proven that only idiots are theists.
The thing to remember is that statisticians don’t really take their statistical analysis’s seriously. It’s fun. But it’s not terribly valid. But it doesn’t have to be. Careful statisticians sound like clams. Fun ones write books like Freakonomics.
I think this article is based on a logical fallacy. These terms don’t represent the majority of people in these races or religions. As you state, these terms are only those that are statistically different between the groups. For example, it might be the case that even though Latino men mention boxing or mma more than other groups, perhaps only 1% of Latinos mention these terms in their profiles. Therefore it would be a mistake to make stereotypes based on your ‘lists’. It might be a better stereotype to say “99% of Latino men don’t mention fighting in their profiles”, for example (with whatever the correct number is.) Another example: you state that “I am cool” is the second most typical phrase used by black men. Here you are implying that this is one of the most common phrases used by black men, which is very misleading. To find the most common phrase used by black men, you should look at all their profiles and find the most common phrases.
How you can say that “the information in this article is NOT our opinion” is beyond me, when you make misleading interpretations of the data and then add on blatant stereotypes and cartoons. Perhaps it’s just a joke that I’m not getting.