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REASONS YOU’RE MUCH MORE LIKELY TO READ THIS BECAUSE IT’S A LIST BY SAM PARKER
LIST-O-MANIA If I were to die tomorrow, the biggest legacy I’d leave is an internet list featuring pictures of hung over-looking owls. As a professional journalist, I’ve reported from civil protests, profiled communities savaged by government cuts and debated the effects of the Iraq War. I’ve interviewed writers and poets, veterans and politicians, great musicians, artists and the odd movie star. Not one of these articles has came even close to the impact of “The Nine Types Of Hang Over We’ve All Endured”, illustrated with funny pictures of birds. I’ve had strangers email me, old friends get in touch and people I’ve just met squeal in delight because of it. Over one million people have read it, and are still reading it. In moments of vanity, I still find them
on Twitter, sharing the link with the words “OMG I’m TOTALLY a number six today! #toomuchwine”. And yet, in the ever-expanding, relentlessly prolific world of internet listicles, I’m small fry. Not even a minnow. The company I was lucky enough to work for, BuzzFeed, produces hundreds of lists every week, on topics ranging from surfboarding dogs and Nineties pop culture to elections and gay rights. Shared on social media hundreds of thousands of times, and read by tens of millions of people; some of them, almost certainly, have been read by you. Despite only being founded in 2006, BuzzFeed now has a global audience of more than 130,000,000 people a month (and rising), and is quickly becoming one
of the most powerful media companies in the world. The rest of journalism is trying to catch up. In their ongoing struggle to survive in the digital age, magazines, local newspapers, blogs, even broadsheets, fill their websites with lists. The result is that you can no longer check the news, read your emails or update your social media account with running into one. As a reader, you may feel you’re getting tired of them. You may, like me, love them and devour several daily. But however you feel about listicles, there is always one out there you just can’t resist clicking on. The question is: why? Why have seemingly simple chunks of listed information become the crack cocaine of the web? Is it a new phenomenon, or was it always this way? The answers are rooted in history, biology and the way the internet is reshaping how we think and process information. And so here they are. In a list, naturally.
iPhone
Our attention span has shrunk to the size of an iPhone screen The power of lists is not something that has only occurred to students and bored office workers prolonging their lunch break with “16 Kittens Who Are Hating Their Life Right Now”. One of Europe’s most revered philosophers and essayists, Italian Umberto Eco, devoted an entire book to the subject in 2009. La Vertigine della Lista (The Infinity of Lists), traces the role of lists in human civilisation, dividing them broadly into two forms. The first is the “practical” list, such as the ones we use to order society or remember to pick up soy sauce from Tesco. The second is the “poetic” list, incorporating everything from Homer’s Iliad to “The 15 Best Homer Simpson Quotes Ever”. Why, according to Eco, are we so compelled by both? Simple: “The list is the origin of culture. What does culture want? To make infinity comprehensible. We have a limit, a very discouraging, humiliating limit: death. That’s why we like all the things that we assume have no limits and, therefore, no end. It’s a way of escaping thoughts about death. We like lists because we don’t want to die.” And you thought it was all just a bit of fun.
264 Numbers stand out
Thanks to Twitter, Facebook et al, you brain can now no longer digest more than a handful of acronymised words at a time – LOL! Actually, recent studies have found no evidence that this popular theory is true. Our ability to concentrate in wider life does not appear to have been diminished by the internet, no matter how hard it is to get your teenage son or daughter to leave their phone alone for five minutes. The enduring popularity of long novels, movies and epic-length TV box sets are a case in point. However, social media, RSS feeds and email alerts have transformed our digital experience so that we now experience a scattergun of distractions whenever we are online. This makes lists appealing because we can be distracted, but come back to them easily and pick up where we left off.
The human race has always loved lists: No. 1: The 10 Commandments You know, the cornerstone of western morality and foundation of our modern legal system. In the Old Testament — Exodus 20: 1—17, to be precise — Moses was handed a stone t ablet inscribed with the Law of God, after leading the people of Israel out of Egypt. They included some rules we’ve taken to heart ever since, such as Thou Shall Not Kill, and a few most of us now ignore, like Keep Sundays Holy and Thou Shall Not Covert Your Neighbour’s Ass (or BMW, for that matter). Whether you believe the story or not, The 10 Commandments is perhaps the most enduring example of why a list can be such a powerful tool for spreading ideas. Even in today’s secular, godless western society, most of us know roughly what the commandments are, while the rest of the Bible is somewhat harder to recall. Had God handed Moses a long, boring essay at the top of Mount Sinai instead of a snappy list, who could say if JudeoChristianity would have caught on in quite the same way?
BECAUSE our eyes love them A simple point, but an important one. Look again at the cover of this magazine. I’ll bet you noticed “16 Reasons Why Men Love Lists” before the lines about Esquire’s other articles, or even José Mourinho’s ridiculously handsome face. The reason is that in a world made up of words, numbers shout the loudest. Russian-American journalist Maria Konnikova put it best in a 2014 article in The New Yorker: “In an environment where dozens of headlines and stories for attention, numerals break up the visual field. Most of what we see online is words and images. In that context, numbers pop.”
In his book The Theory of the Leisure Class, the late 19thcentury American economist Thorstein Veblen coined the term “conspicuous consumption” to describe a cultural undertaking designed to impress others. The idea is that staring thoughtfully at the pages of the Financial Times or a doorstep-sized Russian novel while taking the train makes others think we’re smart, which is worth it even if privately we’re bored to tears. Because the internet is usually consumed in private, either sat at your desk or looking at your mobile phone, we’re more relaxed about seeking out the fun stuff we’re slightly embarrassed to like ie, “14 Important Gifs Of Meerkats Falling Over”, or MailOnline’s “sidebar of shame”.
Because we only ever pretended to read the geopolitical essays in The New York Times anyway
They turn even boring topics into the Top 10
Because we don’t want to die In 2006, a leading research company in the field of user experience conducted an investigation into how we read webpages. After tracking the eyeballs of 232 users as they looked at thousands of sites, a clear pattern emerged. First, we read in a horizontal movement across the top of the page. Then we move down a level and perform a second horizontal sweep. Finally, we scan down the left side in a vertical movement. In other words, a shape the looks a little like an ‘F’. This favours lists over chunks of continuous text, because with each of these three movements, we see something distinct and easier for the mind to process. So in other words, our eyes love the shape of lists before our brain has even begun to process them.
How many times have you found yourself flicking through TV channels late at night only to stumble upon one of those interminable “countdown” shows, in which D-list rent-a-gobs feign enthusiasm for cultural events they played no part in or people they’ve never met, until finally, No 1 is revealed? And how many times, despite rolling your eyes, have you watched until the bitter end. It’s human nature to want to know what pop song, person or moment came first, even if it’s a topic we care little about ranked by a system we don’t believe in. Journalists have used this technique for years — The Sunday Times Rich List — and internet lists do the same. In fact, they go one further and regularly parody the countdown format by offering rankings of inherently subjective topics like crisps, or nonsensical items. The theory is you can’t even read The 10 Greatest Ever Kitchen Utensils That Only Do One Job without wanting to know if the egg slicer beats the garlic press to number one. And the theory is correct.
When BuzzFeed launched in the UK, its first approach was to try and replicate the site’s enormous success in the US by focusing on the same sorts of topics. Americans could not get enough 90’s nostalgia Tamagotchis, Teenage Mutant Turtles, Ginger Spice’s Union Jack dress and just anything else fondly remembered by people in their 20s was the order of the day. In time, it became apparent that UK audiences responded better to different types of lists. Unsurprisingly, class, local tribalism, the weather, alcohol and annoying things other people do you don’t dare mention emerged as popular topics, particularly when discussed with irony or selfdeprecation. Here’s ten of the most popular BuzzFeed UK lists since 2013: 1. The 31 Most Enraging Things About Living In London 2. 31 Tips For Taking The Perfect Wedding Photo 3. 29 Awesomely Awkward Attempts At Being Sexy 4. 18 Intensely Middle Class Responses To The UK Storm 5. The Nine Types Of Hangover We’ve All Endured 6. 18 Things You’re Only Scared Of If You Live In London 7. 27 Extraordinary Facts About The London Underground 8. The 20 Most Brighton Things To Ever Happen 9. 40 Reasons Scotland Is Better Than England 10. 45 Things Every Visitor To London Needs To Know
They tell us about ourselves
While our cousins over the Atlantic fall over themselves to read The Most Powerful Images Of 2011 (12,250,000 views and counting), we Britons prefer our lists to be a little less earnest. As Luke Lewis, editor of BuzzFeed UK, puts it: “Lists implicitly invite the reader to add their own item to the list, which can in turn be a trigger for them to share the article. At BuzzFeed we don’t call them listicles, though. It’s an ugly word. They’re just lists.”
When mankind took it upon its self to document its finest achievements, it opted for a list. The original Seven Wonders were compiled in an early form of travel guide, by Ancient Greek poet Antipatros Sidonios. He opted for the Hanging Gardens of Babylon, the Tsemple of Artemis at Ephesus, the Statue of Zeus at Olympia, the Mausoleum at Halicarnassus, the Colossus of Rhodes, the Lighthouse of Alexandria and — the only one still standing — the Great Pyramid of Giza (fire and earthquakes did for the rest). The list survived and was updated throughout the Roman Empire, the Middle Ages and the Renaissance up to the modern age. Today, the Seven Wonders exists in several different forms, but the closest we have to consensus was a 2001 project called New7Wonders which compiled over 100m votes from around the world: Great Wall Of China (China) Petra (Jordan) Christ the Redeemer (Brazil) Machu Picchu (Peru) Chichen Itza (Mexico) Colosseum (Italy) Taj Mahal (India) (The UK only made the long list for Stonehenge.)
The human race has always loved lists: No. 3: The Seven Wonders of the World
Some of history’s greatest figures kept lists List-lovers are in good company: Schindler. Ethnic German businessman Oskar Schindler is credited with saving the lives of 1,200 Polish-Jewish refugees during the Holocaust by employing them in his factories after bribing officials. Santa Claus. Written by children living around the world. This list has been a vital discipline tool for parents during the winter for centuries. Homer. Midway through his odyssey The Iliad, the Ancient Greek poet paused his tale of the Trojan War, King Agamemnon and Achilles to make a list known as The Catalogue of Ships. Book Two, is a record of each army’s leaders, the settlements in their kingdoms and the number of ships required to transport the men to Troy (including precise details of “weightiness”). All in all, a bit like Saving Private Ryan pausing half way through to dispassionately recount the towns in Normandy and the contents of Tom Hank’s ration pack. Scholars have argued over the significance of The Catalogue of Ships throughout the centuries since, some swearing Homer didn’t write it, others claiming it is there to wow audiences with their memory. Benjamin Franklin. Impressively devoted to self improvement, the great American polymath started a list called The 13 Virtues. His autobiography lists: 1. “Temperance. Eat not to dullness; drink not to elevation.” 2. “Silence. Speak not but what may benefit others or yourself; avoid trifling conversation.” 3. “Order. Let all your things have their places; let each part of your business have its time.” 4. “Resolution. Resolve to perform what you ought; perform without fail what you resolve.” 5. “Frugality. Make no expense but to do good to others or yourself; ie, waste nothing.” 6. “Industry. Lose no time; be always employ'd in something useful; cut off all unnecessary actions.” 7. “Sincerity. Use no hurtful deceit; think innocently and justly, and, if you speak, speak accordingly.” 8. “Justice. Wrong none by doing injuries, or omitting the benefits that are your duty.” 9. “Moderation. Avoid extremes; forbear resenting injuries so much as you think they deserve.” 10. “Cleanliness. Tolerate no uncleanliness in body, clothes, or habitation.” 11. “Tranquility. Be not disturbed at trifles, or at accidents common or unavoidable.” 12. “Chastity. Rarely use venery but for health or offspring, never to dullness, weakness, or the injury of your own or another’s peace or reputation.” 13. “Humility. Imitate Jesus and Socrates.”
There is more to them than you think
The greatest trick listicles ever played was convincing the world they’re stupid. they appear to be roughly cobbled together with little thought, which is why they’re fun and easy to read (and why they infuriate some as much as they entertain). But successful lists — ones that go viral and get shared by millions of people around the world — are far smarter than that. Here are some reasons why:
1. They never embarrass you The starting point of any listicle: are people going to want others to know they’ve read this? Will they share it? There’s a reason 22 Hardcore Porn Clips You Have To See Right Now hasn’t been made yet. Lists are designed to be something you want to embrace, which is why clever jokes, political causes and touching stories about the human spirit are more interesting than boobs or gossip. 2. They alternate their tone A mix of serious points and lighter touches keeps you interested. 3. They’re informal Like it or not, the internet is the Wild West of language. Grammar is dead: long live slang, acronyms and chit-chat. Good list writers understand this, and rather than write to educate you, they write like they’re sending a text to their best friend. 4. They’re succinct With a few exceptions, an internet list will be be between 8 and 33. Lots of examples of the same visual joke — 27 Funny Road Sign — can be longer. Lists that tell a story or make an argument tend to be shorter. A good list understands you might be only looking at your phone for three minutes, so they never outstay their welcome. Most importantly, all lists want you to get to the end, because… 5. They build to an emotional climax Very important. The last item on a list won’t be the funniest or smartest, but the most emotional. To leave you inspired or weepy inside, as your very next decision is whether to share it or not.
From: Personalize, NIKE iD To: Jonah H Peretti Subject: RE: Your NIKE iD order o16468000 Your NIKE iD order was cancelled for one or more of the following reasons. 1) Your Personal iD contains another party’s trademark or other intellectual property. 2) Your Personal iD contains the name of an athlete or team we do not have the legal right to use. 3) Your Personal iD was left blank. Did you not want any personalisation? 4) Your Personal iD contains profanity or inappropriate slang, and besides, your mother would slap us. If you wish to reorder your NIKE iD product with a new personalization please visit us again at www.nike.com Thank you, NIKE iD From: Jonah H. Peretti To: Personalize, NIKE iD Greetings, My order was cancelled but my personal NIKE iD does not violate any of the criteria outlined in your message. The Personal iD on my custom ZOOM XC USA running shoes was the word “sweatshop.” Sweatshop is not: 1) another’s party’s trademark, 2) the name of an athlete, 3) blank, or 4) profanity. I choose the iD because I wanted to remember the toil and labor of the children that made my shoes. Could you please ship them to me immediately. Thanks and Happy New Year, Jonah Peretti
THIS MAN Take a good look. Whenever you enjoy a viral list or find yourself so annoyed by one you wish the internet had never been invented, this is the man to blame. BuzzFeed’s founder, 40-year-old American entrepreneur Jonah Peretti, was experimenting in viral content while the rest of the world was still figuring out how to Google. It all began in 2001. Peretti, then still a grad student, ordered a pair of customised trainers from Nike with “sweatshop” written on them. Nike refused to process his order. The subsequent email chain between Peretti and the company was one of the early viral hits of the internet. After the email chain was forwarded to millions, picked up by newspapers around the world and eventually led to him debating labour conditions with Nike on NBC, Peretti got thinking whether viral success was something he could replicate. His next experiment, in the early 2000s, proved it was. Blackpeopleloveus.com is a spoof site set up by pretend couple Sally and Johnny desperate to prove to the world their ease around black people. Full of cheesy pictures and “testimonies” from their black friends (“Johnny calls me ‘da man!”’ That puts me at ease”), it was a bold parody of modern racism and Peretti’s second viral hit. The Nike sweatshop emails and blackpeopleloveus. com taught him to be bold, be relatable, put out a message people want to be associated with, and most importantly, be funny. This helped Peretti when he launched BuzzFeed years later, the site that either published the last list you read or inspired someone else to.
From: Personalize, NIKE iD To: Jonah H. Peretti Dear NIKE iD Customer, Your NIKE iD order was cancelled because the iD you have chosen contains, as stated in the previous e-mail correspondence, “inappropriate slang”. If you wish to reorder your NIKE iD product with a new personalization please visit us againat www.nike.com. Thank you, NIKE iD From: Jonah H Peretti To: Personalize, NIKE iD Dear NIKE iD, Thank you for your quick response to my inquiry about my custom ZOOM XC USA running shoes. Although I commend you for your prompt customer service, I disagree with the claim that my personal iD was inappropriate slang. After consulting Webster’s Dictionary, I discovered that “sweatshop” is in fact part of standard English, and not slang. The word means: “a shop or factory in which workers are employed for long hours at low wages and under unhealthy conditions” and its origin dates from 1892. So my personal iD does meet the criteria detailed in your first email. Your web site advertises that the NIKE iD program is “about freedom to choose and freedom to express who you are.” I share Nike’s love of freedom and personal expression. The site also says that “If you want it done right...build it yourself.” I was thrilled to be able to build my own shoes, and my personal iD was offered as a small token of appreciation for the sweatshop workers poised to help me realize my vision. I hope that you will value my freedom of expression and reconsider your decision to reject my order. Thank you, Jonah Peretti
From: Personalize, NIKE iD To: Jonah H Peretti’ Dear NIKE iD Customer, Regarding the rules for personalisation it also states on the NIKE iD web site that “Nike reserves the right to cancel any Personal iD up to 24 hours after it has been submitted”. In addition it further explains: “While we honor most personal iDs, we cannot honor every one. Some may be (or contain) others’ trademarks, or the names of certain professional sports teams, athletes or celebrities that Nike does not have the right to use. Others may contain material that we consider inappropriate or simply do not want to place on our products. Unfortunately, at times this obliges us to decline personal iDs that may otherwise seem unobjectionable. In any event, we will let you know if we decline your personal iD, and we will offer you the chance to submit another.” With these rules in mind we cannot accept your order as submitted. If you wish to reorder your NIKE iD product with a new personalization please visit us again at www.nike.com. Thank you, NIKE iD From: Jonah H Peretti To: Personalize, NIKE iD Dear NIKE iD, Thank you for the time and energy you have spent on my request. I have decided to order the shoes with a different iD, but I would like to make one small request. Could you please send me a color snapshot of the ten-year-old Vietnamese girl who makes my shoes? Thanks, Jonah Peretti
The most important factor for any online article is its headline. Consequently, compared to daily newspapers, headlines online have become more and more provocative, particularly when it comes to lists. Here's how five common list style headlines pull you in. 1. The Bold Statement The 10 Greatest Sandwiches The World Has Ever Created. Makes you think: “If tuna mayo isn’t in there then this is bullshit…” 2. The Personal Identity 19 Things You Know To Be True If You Have Hands. Makes you think: “Wait, I have hands… SOMEONE UNDERSTANDS ME!” 3. The Instant Knowledge 22 Mind-Blowing Things You Never Knew About Tie Clips. Makes you think: “This could make me smarter!” 4. The Nostalgia Hit 16 Times Uncle Phil From Fresh Prince Was Right About Life. How it works: “Ah, to be young again…” 5. The Right-on Political 22 Reasons Gay Marriage Should Be Legal NOW. How it works: “If I put this on Facebook, I’ll look progressive and liberal!” Of course, all headlines do is what journalism has always promised: to inform or entertain you. The difference is ascendancy of adjectives (“amazing”, “unforgettable”, “stunning”) and present tense encouragements (“you have to read this today”, “the best thing you’ll see all day”), which can either be interpreted as ironic and amusing, or disingenuous and manipulative. Sites like upworthy.com have more recently taken emotional “click-baiting” headlines to an extreme, one example being “The Things This Four-Year-Old Is Doing Are Cute. The Reason He's Doing Them Is Heartbreaking”.
We’re powerless to resist the headlines
Like The 10 Commandments, the Seven Deadly Sins is a list used by Christianity for thousands of years to help keep us on the straight and narrow. It is first found in the Book of Proverbs (6:16–19), referred to as “six things the Lord hateth, and seven that are an abomination unto Him”
The human race has always loved lists: No. 2: The Seven Deadly Sins Or eight, if you include over sharing on Facebook The American historian David Wallechinsky discovered the popularity of lists in 1975 when he published a collection of facts and knowledge called The People’s Almanac. Realising people couldn’t get enough of facts and trivia, Wallechinsky went on to co-author The Book Of Lists, a best-seller that was updated throughout the Eighties, Nineties and early 2000s. A bit like the internet of 2014, The Books Of Lists embraced the irreverent, obscure and surreal, documenting everything from “famous people who died during sexual intercourse” to “breeds of dogs which bite people the most, and the least”. Wallechinsky’s theory on why his approach was so successful? “People are attracted to lists because we live in an era of overstimulation.. And lists help us in organising what is otherwise overwhelming.
1. A proud look 2. A lying tongue 3. Hands that shed innocent blood 4. A heart that devises wicked plots 5. Feet that are swift to run into mischief 6. A deceitful witness that uttereth lies 7. Him that soweth discord among brethren Or in the modern form: Wrath, Greed, Sloth, Pride, Envy, Gluttony and Lust. The Catholic Church also has a list of virtues, which work inversely to the Seven Deadly Sins: Patience, Charity, Diligence, Humility, Kindness, Temperance and Chastity. This ancient round up of moral no-nos has inspired countless moments of great art, from Dante’s Divine Comedy to Gwyneth Paltrow’s head being delivered to Brad Pitt in a box in the movie Se7en.
THE END
They promise to end
We’re overwhelmed by the world
Most importantly, in a world of endless, rambling opinion blogs written by everyone on everything that ever happens, a numbered list is a promise that, at the very least, what you’re reading will eventually come to a clear and definite end. Like this. For more funny lists, as well as some old fashioned journalism with paragraphs, visit esquire.co.uk