Are you following Twitter’s A-List through their precious 140-word squirts or reading the latest Top Five or Ten? In our endless efforts to categorize and rank everything and everyone, who tops out as the Number One Human right now? Jesus, Ghandi, Kennedy and Reagan are not eligible; this has to be a human alive on the planet today.
Kobe Bryant and Tiger Woods may slug it out in sports while President Obama and Rush Limpbag cross verbal swords across the airwaves, but if we start carving up the people we can’t live without, who really warrants top billing? It could be that researcher working on the cure for cancer. Maybe someone raising billions for world’s poor fits in there too. Uncle Stew might get a slot since he taught you how to fish instead of just giving you one.
We are addicted to these damned lists and, quite honestly, it is embarrassing. Want to grab readers on a Web site? Throw up the Top 5 Ways To Get Free Food from the Top 10 Restaurants (and include them on another list). It doesn’t really matter what the subject is, if you do a ranking, people will click on it.
Top 20 Hottest Jobs Right Now. Click
Top 5 Baseball Stadiums. Click.
The 7 Fastest Sports Cars. Click, click.
Ten Best Shopping Centers in Serbia. Click, click, click.
Top Eight Largest Breasts On The Web. Click, click, click, click, click, click, click, click, click, click, click, click, click, click, click, click, click, click, click, click, click, click, click, click, click, click, click, click, click, click, click, click, click, click, click, click, click, click, click, click, click, click, click, click, click, click, click, click, click, click, click, click, click, click, click, click, click, click, click, click, click, click, click, click, click, click, click, click, click, click, click, click, click, click, click, click, click, click, click, click, click, click, click, click, click, click, click, click, click, click, click, click, click, click, click, click, click…
The only Top anything I want to read is in Consumer Reports. They actually test that stuff (supposedly). Who tests the World’s Top 5 Resorts or Best 7 Bourbons, except people who get paid or have something at stake? Invite a reporter to your barbecue joint and give him two weeks of free cue and beer and he’ll slap your ass into a Top 4 ranking faster than your mother bragging about your success.
We are list-a-holics. We want to rank everything. Neanderthals carved their ranking into cave walls. We spew ours from Web sites and magazine covers and TV shows. Top 10 Ways To Die, The Two Handiest Fingers, Three Best Ways To Poke Your Eye Out, Top 5 Things That Piss Us Off. What came in at number 1 on the last one, there? Ranking everything.
