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,

If you find yourself offended by any of this like “Brinidead” did then you should just stop going outside and pretending you are a human being. There is nothing negative in any of this write up. Merely facts and statistics based on what WE ALL have put on our profiles. I for one fall far outside of the typical “White person” as there are only four things on the list that apply to me and two of them are because of my job. That in no way characterizes me as a stereotypical white guy. But instead of crying about the truth of societies idiosyncrasies I laughed at the obvious and overwhelming fact that no matter how much people don’t want to “fit the profile” they so often fall victim to it by their own unintentional means.
Congratulations OKC on pointing out that when it really comes down to it, people are people. Alike in so many ways most of us can’t stand it.
If you are one of the people that can’t stand it, then be independent and original. Don’t follow. Stop giving a crap what other people think, say or do and live for yourself! Then you will truly stand out from the crowd but it won’t be for looking or acting like a douche bag!
Fun read, but loads of bad data.
OKC needs more specific racial classifications if they want data like this to be accurate. In the U.S., “Asian” refers almost exclusively to the Far East, while in the U.K., it refers pretty exclusively to South Asia. The Asians who like “Cricket” are Indo/Pakistani, not Chinese or something.
Second, there are a lot of phrases taken out of context. I see “red hot chili peppers” as the only western band mentioned on the Indian list. This makes me wonder if a lot of Indian people actually like that band, or if that word appeared there because a lot of Indians (mostly in India) might include that they eat chili peppers on their profile.
“exams”. I doubt anyone “likes” exams, they probably mentioned that they hate studying for them or something.
I’m probably being too harsh, it was a fun read, and the lists are (for the most part) pretty good cross sections of what a lot of people of certain races like.
According to comments. almost everyone was offended by one thing or another. Except those who’s got a reason to be smug. Am I the only one who wants just to think?
I think you would ahve to list Jews with a higher writing proficiency if half of them on OKC did not list themselves as agnostic, atheist, or other. Many of my people trend to be secular Jews or don’t embrace their religion out of fear of persecution. Also many young people list themselves as atheist even though they are not because they consider it to be cool. Just as many women on OKC claim to be bisexual but most are not. We the Jews are a well learned people. I think its very interesting the differences between the races. there are many cultural differences. Thank you for the enlightenment.
I found this to be entertaining, well as entertaining as stats can be. Then again i’m just another average Jewish white guy whose proficiency in reading and writing skills tops out in the 9th grade category. I was hoping to find the stats on white woman who like to practice yoga. Because from from what i’ve seen here I imagine that half the country at any given time of day is in the downward doggie position. Which, as Martha Stewart would say, is a good thing. The satellite imagery from above would be as they say, priceless.
And if I were to make any revisions to my profile based on the info you provided I would have to add that I love sashimi and soul food. Those two things should open up a whole new ethnic world to my conversational palette here. Oh and I guess I should chips and salsa to my profile in order to welcome the Latin hemisphere into my mind and body. After all it takes food to tango…
Oh and one last thought. As long as we are talking about divisions and lines in the sands amongst peoples of the world i’d like to take this opportunity to apologize on the behalf of white males across the country who swear in their profiles and come on to woman like mack trucks without first getting to know them. I like to say fuck as much as the next guy but rarely use it as an opening line when greeting strangers. A little creativity goes a long way. But then again im just another stat swimming in the sea of love. So what the fuck do I know, lol. Well I do know that the latest stats coming out of the Height Report sent a chill thru me…
Welcome to love town.
ok, but I’m really curious to see how this changes with sexual orientation!
Fantastic article. I’d love to see similar analysis with binning based on the Briggs-Myers personality test, the results of which should be available for the large number of OKC users who have completed it.
Apparently, “Brinidead” is an anagram for “Braindead”, neither properly spelled nor well disguised. And they’re called “beat-downs”, Brinidead. Maybe you should start liking them, because I foresee more in your future…
I think what’s really interesting about this is that most likely this represents not what is actually preferred by each race but what each race assumes is going to be found attractive by the people they’re trying to attract.
Especially re: references to not having kids, education, being a simple person, funny guy, etc.
None of the stuff on the “Stuff black people like” appears in my profile. And my reading and writing “sophistication” has been college level since 8th grade.
This is a horrible way to find out that I’m probably not really black! What am I suppose to do now?! Start chasing more “Asian” girls?
But seriously, if OKCupid is going to be running these kinds of surveys, they really need to learn how to better characterized different ethnic groups. For instance, my Chinese friends rarely have anything in common with my Japanese friends (other than sushi, which I think is actually more of an urban dweller thing), or my Northern black friends rarely have much in common with my Southern-raised friends.
And where do my Russian friends fall? They don’t share much culture with my “white” friends and they are definitely not “Asian” enough for the Asian category.
Black, Asian, Latino, White – these are all way too broad terms to make any kind of distinction between the different cultures present on OKC. I estimate you need at least 12 categories to fit probably 96% of the members.
“I think you would ahve to list Jews with a higher writing proficiency”… “Many of my people trend to be secular Jews”. I found this ironic and humorous. Anyway Adam, if someone is willing to call themselves unreligious just to meet girls or whatever then they can’t be that religious. If you think the creator of the universe is a Jew and he’s watching to make sure you’re also being a Jew then you’re not going to pretend to be something else that easily.
Middle Eastern guys are into Richard Dawkins?!?! Wow
It’s both hilarious and disparaging that the thing most middle-eastern women like is different cultures, but it really makes sense… if I had to wear a burka all day I’d like other cultures too.
Thanks for having the balls to post this. While there are such things as misguided stereotypes, many are just the ‘odds are’ and is often backed up but statistical data. I think it’s great information for people to see and take in. OKC isn’t makeing this stuff up, it’s what we users are putting in our profiles and they’re simply putting the big picture in infographic format for easy consumption.
If you’re taking any of this personally, you’re choosing to do so for the sake of being offended.
Pretty Lol. Man your interns do good stuff.
Jeanine said:
On your chart about religions where is Christianity?
—————
Protestant and Catholic were the first entries on the list.
Out of curiosity, what’s the margin of error here?
Interesting the discription for the white people I have nothing in common with and im white. Well I’m leagally white any. I’m half native american and half white to be honest but i see no writings about native americans to compare to.
@Robert: I spent my teens and early twenties in North Carolina and I am a big fan of southern/soul food.
@ matt:
Re: Charlotte’s post.
“Sure you can dis people on their beliefs but why you say it? You just want to satisfy your belief that everyone must conform to your way of life.”
Why are you making the assumption that Charlotte is an intolerant conventional born-again Christian (or Muslim–same difference). The atheists DO come come off as being smug here.
I thought this analysis was interesting, especially considering I’m an African-American female agnostic who never talks about religion. None of the tweets about God surprised me though considering 8 out of 10 black folks are religious, according to a study done by the Pew Forum on Religion & Public Life. The black tweets do have good taste in music though, especially when it comes to Mos Def, Talib Kweli and Outkast. Anyway, interesting stuff.
stuff that folk on OK cupid like? ill manners and rudeness.. simple as.. oh and besides that being scroungers..
regardless of race.. there are some truly ignorant / arrogant / lying * fools who are on it
* delete as applicable
It’s interesting that all the groups that the groups that don’t speak English natively (I’m not including Latinos in that group, because many of the Latinos here on OK Cupid are likely people who grew up in the US and are natively bilingual) use the language at a higher grade level than the groups that do speak it natively. I suspect this is partly because the native speakers are more likely to use colloquial rather than school English.
Serious athiests are more intelligent than anyone else. Not surprising. I guess we should just cut to the chase and have an athiest-only dating site.
I find it very interesting, intriguing actually, that the protestant Christians have the lowest reading and writing levels while atheists have the highest. Does this mean that religion depends on lower abilities in these areas or that people with higher abilities are more aware and thoughtful? Maybe both are true. Something to think about.
hahahahahah GET OVER IT!!!
I love these posts. Very insightful, some surprises, some stereotypes explained. I couldn’t help but feel like I didn’t fit ANY of the “white guy” trends except for megadeth and guitar. I guess that’s enough, huh? Typical.
Wow. A good way to troll your users. I especially liked that crack about how the Bible should be in comic sans, very professional. It’s too bad you didn’t make a similar crack about the blacks.
Yep, as usual, White Americans are the least in touch with their roots. “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.”
But is it any surprise, when our classes on history and politics dwell to such an extreme degree on the the evil deeds of White men? We’re fed stories about Hitler and Cortez, but rarely do we focus on the more positive figures in White history – and when we do discuss people like Edison, Newton, or da Vinci, it’s never mentioned that these men were Europeans. But when a man’s done something bad, it’s always mentioned if he’s white (and we rarely hear about the barbarism of non-whites. Whenever the word “genocide” is mentioned, it’s always preceded or followed closely by Hitler and the Germans. Never do we discuss the Ottoman genocide against the Armenians, or the Japanese genocide against the Chinese in the Sino-Japanese war. White Americans have been filled with guilt to the point that we no longer dare to celebrate our traditions, and so we sell out: we buy Pabst and we watch soap operas and we eat cuisine which is nothing like that of our native cultures. Perhaps we strive to inter-marry with non-whites because it mollifies our guilt over wrongdoings which are none of our own, but for which we feel responsible. Ultimately, European culture dies and is replaced, either by something foreign (think whiggers or neo-Buddhists), or else by nothing in particular (i.e. raw, unbridled materialism).
It’s no wonder White profiles lack sophistication – having lost our traditions and our cultural values, White Americans see no need to educate themselves. After all, if you have no roots and no past, then what motivation is there to do anything? Just shop at Macy’s and eat and Burger King and veg out in front of the tube for 4-5 hours a day. As long as it feels good, do it.
Is it any wonder that this country is on the skids when its majority ethnic group is so out of touch with everything that matters?
Finally, one personal comment in response to Adam’s comment, “I think you would ahve to list Jews with a higher writing proficiency if half of them on OKC did not list themselves as agnostic, atheist, or other. Many of my people trend to be secular Jews or don’t embrace their religion out of fear of persecution.” Adam, please stop feeding us the persecution bit. Jews are the wealthiest, most influential, and most well-protected ethno-religious group in the United States, and are thus arguably the least victimized as well. I’m tired of hearing about how Jews are “victims” when I see the carnage which the Israeli military inflicts on its Arab neighbors. If genocide wasn’t permissible for the Nazis, then why should “God’s chosen” be permitted to do the same?
I found the data analysis really amusing… Oh the part about what white guys like was really funny… Add “fucking” n middle of anything…. Well y’all know the rest… Y’all crazy for real hope none of y’all Getz shot…. Lol
All white and black men LOVE football and beer. Those are Nos. 1 and 2 no matter what your poll says. For Hispanics it’s cerveza first and soccer second. For Asians and any male under 25, it’s computers first and rice-burner cars second.
For all women of every race, keeping men from drinking beer and watching football (or any other sports) is No. 1, followed by shopping and talking on the cell while driving. Cell-phone driving is actually their No. 1 sport. Think about it, have you ever seen a woman driving a car without a cell phone connected to her ear?
Interesting stuff.
It’s kind of funny… you could easily look at this info as a way of reinforcing every racial/ethnic/religious stereotype you’ve ever encountered. And in a way, the data would support that.
On the other hand, you could simply realize that, no matter how strong the pull of the “average” might be, so many individuals are just COMPLETELY different from the average standards of their race or religion.
I know white/black/asian/indian people whose profiles would have absolutely NOTHING from their respective “race-lists”, just as I know tons of brilliant protestants/muslims/ etc.
/all that said, apparently I happen to conform 100% to the white-atheist stereotype. so i guess this post is a little ironic
I’m not offended or intrigued or got any giggles from this
All I could think is…
My best friend Tony (black) likes anime…
I’m white (pale as a fishbelly) and my favorite singer of all time is Otis Redding…
My friend Curtis (whiter than me) moved to Korea and studied Japanese history and language just because he loves Asian culture…
My friend Kat is a mud-riding, Nascar loving, country music singing redneck and her best friend is a drag queen…(not racial but a definitive cultural difference)
What’s my point? Nothing more than to say…the lines that have been drawn so heavily between different walks of life are indelible enough…Why draw more?
With this large of a sample the standard error of the mean probably is very small. The amount of data on this site and the willingness of users to both create and take tests makes this site a psychologist’s wet dream. I would like to see a broader use of the data, sans identifying data, in experimental psychology graduate classes. Ph.D and Masters candidates could easily find everything they need to write a thesis and support their findings. The possibilities here are endless. Go for it OKC. Let’s see more results from the data analysis.
Given that the profiles are what people want the other gender to know about them, it’s interesting to me that so many white guys (like me) want to appear to be frat guys (as the blogger puts it).
Interesting collections, and thanks to you@okc for diving right in and giving it a go! It’s waaaaay too common these days for an article such as this to be avoided as some kind of taboo subject.
These *are* just raw data pulls, and barring any nefarious intent, I think it’s best to accept the article for what it shows, and avoid any tragic inferences or be terribly offended. It’s fun to diss “my” identified group, and worth a look to see how other group data aggregate. After all, “i can fix anything” but I’m no country boy.
What’s up with the font for entry in this comment box? Yikes, it’s an evil vari-space monstrosity. Just sayin’ — using FF 3.6.9 unmodified for interface issues such as this, so, um, help?
This was a great read! It was really interesting and humorous; our differences SHOULD be celebrated, they are what make the world go ’round!
@ Adam, stop projecting your own insecurities onto other Jews. Your claims may have been true in the last century, but c’mon over to the 21st Century. I am an Atheist who happens to live in a predominantly Jewish community in the Bible Belt, work for Jews, and am friends with Jews. I have also lived all over this country and have yet to meet a Jew who hides their religion out of fear of persecution. In fact, most Jews I encounter show pride for their background. The notion of ANYONE claiming to the an Atheist to avoid persecution makes me fall down in hysterics. To the contrary, as the U.S. is an overwhelmingly religious country, Atheists are exponentially more prone to persecution. Let’s just stick to the statistical & tongue-in-cheek nature of this article instead of your assumptions of those with different beliefs or non-beliefs.
Don’t Coleman-Liau Index me, bro!
This is possibly the most foolish article I’ve ever read. I was happy to hear that since my conversion from the Wiccan to Catholic faith that my apparent religion and writing proficiency level dropped to that of something less than an 8th grader. I’m also happy to see as a White male I’m supposed to like The Red Sox, Diet Coke, golfing Harleys, and nofx. Apparently they got their data from Jeff Foxworthy.
My girlfriend, who’s Hispanic will be happy to read about all the things she’s supposed to be, too. I’m sure she didn’t know she was supposed to be doing some of the stuff on the list.
My guess is that the authors are from some Neo-Nazi youth group and have too much free time on their hands.
The reading and education levels in general seem low in these results don’t they? I went to college, not 9th grade which was as far as this list went!! I don’t personally know any athiests who can’t read and write. Also, a lot of data is missing as this is just based on averages. Its TOO average.
For example, I use OkCupid, I’m a white woman, and I do not list any of the things on the white woman list you have here, so someone like me has a profile that is completely unique and won’t even put a blip on your results. I also don’t socialize with other white women who would probably list any of those things.
Any survey based on averages is going to be bad.
Based on these results, I’d think that most of OKCupid’s members are morons, fat, boring, dumb, possibly barely literate, regardless of race or gender. But as a current member I know that is not true. I find people in my area with my interests. Thus, this experiment seems too broad to generate any actual, believable results based on race or anything else. I thought it would be cooler but it just made me realize that yes, in fact, dating is hard because I’m surrounded by morons sadly and I feel sad for this country.
I think race in itself is not a useful concept. It’s scientifically disproven but still exists in society when terms like ethnicity are more accurate and often more useful. Interesting article though… I enjoyed reading it.
Great ‘sources’ you used, not!
I’m more concerned about the desperate, pathetic, insecure urge to stereotype people.
speculative
you havent mentioned the exceptions?
okcupid is unique
why shouldnt their members be unique or atleast not the horror… typos!
you must have a lot of research to find this result and for the most part the Indian stuff is pretty accurate
greetings!
scher
Adam, you have no clue about the people who list themselves as atheists. Please do not say that atheism is a trend or as a safety net; it’s not! It so happens that atheists are a minority who are usually more educated than most. Also, if atheism was a trend, I would not have been tortured, bullied, and beat up all throughout middle school and high school (by students and teachers) because of my beliefs. Being an atheist is very difficult because we do not believe in an afterlife and do not have a god in which we can rely. Do some research on atheists before you post something like atheism being a trend. You will see what I have stated here- That being an atheist is psychologically and socially difficult because we are in fact a minority. Whether you like it or not, we are even more of a minority than those who embrace Judaism.
there are 256K total profiles, but what is the break of the number of profiles of each sex, racial group, religious affiliation? the numbers on the bottom of the word charts are all 256K. i would just like a sense of the sample size.
I’m curious- did the “Middle Eastern” group include Jews, or were we included in the white group? Or did we fall into both groups? I’m just wondering, since the Middle Eastern women polled mentioned “Jewish” and “bagels”.
The trouble with this article is it is based on how people want possible significant others to see them. Do white girls really like NASCAR or do they say they do because the type of guy/girl they are looking for probably likes NASCAR? That’s my opinion. OKCupid may have seemed like a good source for this kind of information but it isn’t because the profiles are skewed to attract mates. There is a bit of dishonesty in that no matter which way you look at it.
I love the tongue-in-cheek style of this article. Well done!
For those who are taking this a little too seriously, please calm down, and don’t ever contact me.
you do notice they didnt have anything to say about us pagans… cuz we are to perfect.. heeheehee