I love lists: They're organized, convenient, easy, compact, versatile, succinct, and simple. I especially love lists that make use of the Oxford comma.
Recently, however, I've come across some listicles that have been exploiting these beautiful properties of lists and debasing them. Although listicles can be a safe bet for any online blogger/writer in this tech age, they certainly should not be written carelessly. I don't have anything against the listicle genre as a whole, and I know there continue to be quality lists apart from my grocery list and "Thirteen Reasons Why."
But like everything else that started as amazing—from Chinese takeout to Internet memes to vampire love stories—the industry starts to attract attention, inducing a superfluous number of firms to enter the market, and soon, the industry is overrun by low-quality goods and services with no consideration for consumer happiness. Just for a superficial or external purpose.
Let this discourage any more of that preposterous behavior.
1. They’re either too long or too short.
There’s never that perfect number. When you want more, that’s the end; when you want it to end, it's ceaseless.
2. They don’t really highlight a writer’s sentence structure, style, or ability to form cohesive paragraphs.
Because we like everything short. Fragments are popular and acceptable!! No matter what Word tries to tell us. No attention span. Short and sweet. Like me.
3. They’re often repetitive.
Not every list point is unique, but only exists to add another number to the list. I guess we're trying to be environmentally friendly by recycling words, too.
4. They like to reiterate the same thing.
Over and over again. Two singular ideas drag out to be “7 Reasons Why."
5. The GIFs/images that accompany the list number don’t even make sense.
Sometimes we can’t portray an idea in a single picture, or there simply isn’t a coherent way to visually accompany the idea.
6. Not everything on the list is actually relatable or true.
This ruins the entire article and decreases the probability of shares. Ya dun f***ed up.
7. This.
They’re usually products of writer’s block (not all, of course). Because when we don’t know what else to write about, we revert to a list. And for the reader, that’s risqué, because it could be a complete waste of time and energy scrolling and reading, but it could also be the best entertainment they’ve had all day. How scammed do you feel right now?
The best way to prevent the usage of something is to use that something as your medium.
To be fair, I'll admit I've been a hypocrite.
