Every year draws to a close with every journalist and culture writer everywhere rediscovering his or her true social function: lists. Listing things in order, file, importance, and rank: the taxonomy of culture. How are we legitimately critics and curators without committing superlative, hyperbole, and clout to the best things that happened, were created, or came out of our subjects? The answer is that we simply cannot. Behold: 10 best farts! 5 coolest celebrity high-fives! 6.5 ways to hernia! 43 best “Rolling In The Deep” high-school choir covers! 3 trombones! With this orderly spirit in mind, here’s this edition of The Superlative Top 10 List of Lists of Things that Are Definitively in a List for 2011.
10. Terrorist Screening Center: No Fly List
The Terrorist Security Administration escorts it out of the terminal and then knocks it out in the park for like the tenth year in a row with this incredible compendium. The TSC bravely went alphabetical, sweeping all the way from wigged-out Widad Aagesen to down to Pinkney Liotti, the luckiest man in show business, shutting it down with Nils Zywiec, who I’m pretty sure is the namesake for that syrupy beer they sell in Greenpoint. Doubles as a baby-naming manual. Your baby won’t be able to fly, though.
09. NPR: The 20 Unhappiest People You Meet In The Comments Sections Of Year-End Lists
This list lists the generic kind of whiners/sycophants you’re bound to encounter in the list of user comments under lists proper. So, placed here, it becomes list about bitching about lists in a list in this list about lists. Example comment: “The object of which I was a fan of the previous 12 months was placed somewhere within this list that I neither expected nor desired it to be placed.” What I’m trying to say is fuck this list.
08. Indie Music Filter: Best of 2011: Lists
A list of lists. I clicked through about 80 percent of these before I blacked out. These take approximately the same 50 albums and reorder them while trying to legitimize miniscule flip-flops. What new information do you get from shuffling and reading the same deck of cards over and over, besides that you’re having a stroke? Get real, music. Charting is some Billboard BS wherein quantity at some point became misconstrued for quality. Good vs. Bad is an internal argument that should be reserved for elementary school principals and dogs in training. Music is music and I’m bored as shit.
07. Forbes: 30 Under 30
Props to Forbes and Consequence of Sound for being the only ones to give Donald Glover his due. He’s one of 29 other white people on this list.
06. People: Sexiest Man Alive 2011
I didn’t actually look at this one but Ryan Gosling [Ed. note: the sentence ends here.]
05. Impose: The Superlative Top 10 List of Lists of Things that Are Definitively in a List for 2011
This list is the best list. I can’t believe you idiots would even consider a list of a different order or format. As gesture of good will, I am here giving nods to other lists to show I am open-minded and community-oriented. In reality, I believe my viewpoint is the only legitimate one and I read every other list in order to realign my personal brand with those of tastemakers, with the hope of even a mote of recognition. I am callow without the validation of others and my analytics have been dropping lately and things just haven’t been going that well at work, ok? Lay off. Fuck this list.
04. Videogum: The Best Viral Videos of 2011: A Retrospective
How can you refute “Gold Surprise,” “Divine Rags” or “Dog Disco?” This is the Wesley Willis of lists.
03. Pitchfork: You Can Find This on the Internet: Overlooked Mixtapes
For real, this might be the only worthwhile list related to music made this year. I’m saying that as a music writer who contributed to more than my share of rankings this season. Whenever I read about the new dope-ish mixtape from wherever Kentucky, I don’t even know where to start. Thanks P4K. Not even being sarcastic, for once.
02. ABC: That List of All the People They Found Buried on Long Island
Legit this is an important list. Seems like our only hope to catch this sick fuck by now is if there’s one Impose reader who’s the Encyclopedia Brown of dead sex-workers buried on Long Island. Fuck this list on principle but read this list in case you’re good at clues.
01. Buzzfeed: The Thirty Most Important Cats of 2011
I take issue with the fact I could only find one list about cats this year. Aren’t pictures of cats one of the three pillars of Internet? (cats, piracy, porn) I never saw this Buzzfeed thing on “blogs that are good: the list” so I’m not sure if this is reputable. But guys, cats. Immortal list. The only list that’s ever mattered.
