Top 10 movies. Top 10 podcasts. Anyone else overwhelmed by all these lists?
2023 is coming to a close, and we’ve survived yet another “best of” season. Surely you couldn’t have missed all those endless lists purporting to organize the vast offerings in every aspect of our lives. They’re everywhere.
A sampling from my perpetually overflowing inbox:
The Top 10 Books The Top 10 Albums The Top 10 Films The Top 10 Recipes The Top 10 Songs The Top 10 TV Shows
The Top 10 Podcasts
Year-end lists have become a venerable tradition that satisfies our appetite for both direction and data. How else can we make sense of the deluge of choices?
Lists are particularly helpful in the culture corner, where the number of options can be so staggering as to paralyze us. But they’re not limited to the arts. For instance, I just finished reading the Top News Stories of 2023. I’ve also spotted Top 10 Google Searches and Top 10 Performing Stocks. I wouldn’t be surprised if someone somewhere came up with a list of the Top 10 Topics that
Guarantee a Fight in the Family. Or the Top 10 Public Restrooms in Florida.
A best of list, however ordinary or banal the topic, serves as a road map. A list distills information into bite-size packages. Easy to read and remember, it becomes a good starting point when word of mouth gets us only so far.
The parade of yearend lists tames the frustrating paradox of choice, a psychological concept that shows how having too many options make us feel worse, not better. Consider the seemingly infinite shelves of yogurts in the supermarket. If you’re not sure of what you want or are a newbie to the world of yogurt brands and types, strolling that section of the refrigerated aisle can leave you exhausted. Plain or flavored? Nonfat or 2%? Traditional or Greek? Cow’s, sheep’s or goat’s milk? And that hardly covers the plethora of alternatives. Hence, a Top 10 Yogurt list would be so helpful.
See, our brains crave simplicity, or at the very least, a reduced amount of choices so we can decide quickly and with minimal effort. Tabulations of any sort do that. Plus, they control the time we spend second-guessing ourselves.
As a fan of lists, I used to love the slow-drip release of top 10 or the best-of anything. I was always curious about what had influenced the arbiters of culture. This was especially true for fields I knew little about. Movies, say, or finance. These lists gave me a peek into unknown realms. Sometimes a mention would even spark a trial run of a show or a song.
True, sometimes I would be annoyed when one of my favorites — a book, a movie, a show —didn’t make it on a year-end list or (gasp!) ranked below something I considered inferior. But I ceded power to the experts.
The landscape of year-end lists has been changing, however. These days the commoner’s opinion can receive the same play as the educated tastemaker’s. Anyone can whip up a Top 10 list. You don’t have to work for the New York Times or Esquire or The Atlantic or National Public Radio. Heck, you can include your own Top 10 of Whatever in your Christmas letter or email.
Thanks to the pioneering work of Yelp, Amazon and similar review platforms, we live in a world where everyone is a critic. Or at the very least a wannabe influencer. One star or five stars, thumbs up or thumbs down, if you’re snarky enough and have a sizable social media following, you, too, can publicize your opinion to the world.
I’m not sure whether this is good or bad. But I can say with certainty that the torrent of top 10 lists has left me where I started: confused and overwhelmed.