1. The numbered lists found both online are all too often incoherent – rather than making real connections the blogger just ranks random statements.
2. Best of lists are not only subjective, ninety-nine percent of the time they’re not nearly subjective enough – for example, check out the many lists of ‘best opening lines of books’ and notice how all too often these are simply lists of famous ‘canonical’ books. Ditto best films or albums of all time lists. These aren’t so much what the blogger likes as what the blogger thinks their audience will recognise and they (the blogger) ought to like to demonstrate their ‘fine’ (in reality below-average and handed down from square teachers) tastes.
3. List blogs are repetitious but mostly they’re not repetitious enough – generally their authors are looking to create an impression of individuality in an alienated world rather than aiming at the overthrow of consumer and fan relations through parody and repetition.
4. By around point four the blogger is usually getting pretty bored and just types the first thing that comes into their head!
5. The bizarre and the offbeat are so over-emphasised in list blogs (non-best of cultural artifacts variety) that they cease to be odd.
6. List blogs are bad enough when done as text but they are even worse when they’re streamed video compilations of ‘top’ gaming escapades – mostly boys demonstrating their ‘skill’ at shoot ‘em up computer games.
7. Unfortunately most bloggers are numerate enough to correctly order the numbers one to ten, or even one to one hundred – and list blogs are generally so boring that speaking personally I’d find it more exciting if they more were jumbled up, or simply skipped from point one to point ten (at least that way they’d be shorter)! The overwhelming majority of bloggers appear to have had the type of bourgeois college education designed to utterly smash any sense of imagination they may have possessed as children.
8. The attention span of most web surfers is so short they’re unlikely to get beyond point 3!
9. Very often one or more items in the list will only have the most tenuous of connections to the subject allegedly under discussion. NB this statement is a deliberate repetition of point one – the words are different but the meaning is the same. Therefore you’ve been cheated – despite including ten points I’ve actually only provided you with 9 reasons why list blogs suck!
10. The final point is usually even more lightweight and throwaway than than the rest of the blog!
And while you’re at it don’t forget to check – www.stewarthomesociety.org – you know it makes (no) sense!