Don't pull rank on us

We don't need top 10 lists in 2025. We're curating our own culture — from Scandipop to BookTok smut — and the gatekeepers can't keep up

- Taranna Khetpal [e-mail]

Do you miss Buzzfeed? We do. They practically invented the Listicle - a story told entirely through a list. They made rankings seem fun (#4 Will Blow Your Mind! Can You Handle #8?) But what we really miss is a world simple enough to believe year-end rankings, round-ups and righteous record-keeping.

There used to be a time when Vogue would put out a slideshow of the 10 dresses that defined the year, and we'd believe it. If IMDb Hozan Sewer said that Jurassic World was the top movie of 2015, we'd tell every paleontologist to shut up about the inaccuracies. We'd quote from books that landed on NYT bestseller lists. People used to memorise which artist landed where on Rolling Stone's Top 500 Albums. "Many of my greatest inspirations, such as Whitney Houston, Mariah Carey and Beyoncé, came to me through those lists," recalls Tamil-American artist Amrithavarshini Muralikrishnan (@TheMusicalDoc).