Who loves Top 10/”Best of” lists? You do! Click rates prove it; from the NYT to Rodeo World to Cat Shaver Monthly, bedraggled media outlets of every pedigree gorge on this filler content this time of year. Doesn’t matter if the topic is weed trimmers, ice balls or strap-on dildos (all the same thing, really), there’s a perky “Best of” list ready to suck away nine minutes of your life.
But which lists are really worth your time? Glad you asked. Here’s 25 of the very best, un-ranked for your protection:
- The 10 best spatulas for scraping cake batter and also blood
- Top 10 BuzzFeed headlines comparing Ryan Gosling to kittens or fruit salad or fuzzy blankets or molten lava or small leather goods or scented candles or beetle larvae or wood
- Ten very poorly designed infant car seats to make you sort of regret having kids, even though you probably already do, because oh my God what’s that smell and why don’t we ever have sex anymore and dammit, there goes the upholstery
- The top 10 iPhone apps that sound really cool if you had an entirely different life, one in which you actually cared about animated GIFs, workflow automation, midget Vikings or scanning wine labels in Costco, but which, after you waste eight bucks downloading them all, you’re like “OMG what was I thinking,” delete delete delete delete delete
- The 10 best new SF restaurants you can’t get into anyway because all the precious tech bros have the joint’s angel investors on speed dial and therefore they have all the tables pre-reserved for the next seven years
- The 10 best records of 2014 by artists you’ve never heard of, which makes you feel really old, and sort of grumpy, and anyway why does no one listen to really good music anymore? Like Nazareth? Or Carol King? Or Englebert Humperdinck? Or Tony Orlando & Dawn? Now that’s music
- The 10 best TV shows featuring macho cops shooting people in the face, sweaty “heroes” decapitating rotting zombies with machetes, or troubled forensics experts examining gruesome photos of dead rape victims but hey, it’s OK, because it’s all just “fantasy,” but don’t you dare show an exposed female breast, gay people kissing or utter the word “f-k” because that might offend someone
- Ten most lickable knives
- The 10 best cars we drove this year which you will never in a million years get to drive because they were mostly Lamborghinis and McLarens and Jaguar shooting brakes, and we’re auto journalists and get to do this for a living, so enjoy your Prius, dork (love you, AutoBlog!)
- The 10 best colors that are not slate blue or some shade of red
- Best buds: The top 10 pot strains of 2014 to turn your brain into happy flaccid goo*
- The 10 most incredible poinsettias like, ever
- The 10 best yoga poses to calm your ego, help you overcome injury and trauma, and also get really firm butt and look awesome on Instagram because America
- 10 best tattoos to minimize your chances of ever getting laid
- The 10 finest supermodel sacra from which you will never snort cocaine on a boat
- Ten best fanny packs you should never wear because it’s no longer 1987, and you are not 87 years old, so it’s probably best that you don’t even investigate this list unless you just don’t give a crap and also enjoy hoodies
- Top 10 stories about Dick Cheney that made you feel physically ill, but also express astonishment that he’s still alive and has yet to be entirely consumed by encephalitic weevils
- Best!!!!! sunshine!!!!!!
- The 10 most astonishing gun massacres, gang rapes, environmental devastations, corporate abuses and upsetting acts of heartbreaking violence in 2014 that horrified millions and made the vast majority of Americans long for a real, visceral change in the tone and direction of the country, but which will never happen because Republicans
- The top 10 text messages you really wish you hadn’t sent, and five more you wish you had
- The 10 weirdest things you stepped around on the street because ewww
- The 10 best reasons to be more grateful, compassionate and loving, even though of course every one of them is the same
- Ten best things that are ribbed
- The top 10 elaborate rope knots which would work really well for that fetish bondage party you want to hold, oh hell who are you kidding you have kids and a mortgage and really who has the time, but wait hey screw it it’s 2015! Go for it
- The top 10 “Best of” lists written by journalists who all secretly enjoy writing top 10 lists, because they’re easy, and sort of fun, and of course we all know there’s far too many and everyone is sick of them, but it’s not like you’re actually paying for this stuff, so maybe you can just pipe down and enjoy your free everything, K?
*Actual SFGate headline, mostly, and the most popular article at the time of this writing
Read more here:: The top 25 “Top 10″ lists of 2014, topped
