Human Experience, Ranked

In 2006, Senator Ted Stevens of Alaska attempted to explain the internet to the Senate as a “series of tubes.” He was talking about regulations for internet service providers, but the phrase quickly escaped its context to become one of the most enduring memes of early social media. More than a decade later, it’s time to reconsider the web’s building blocks. The internet can now be more accurately described as a series of lists, enumerating everything from the United States’ worst airports to the most beloved grocery stores.

As both the year and the decade come to a close, one type of list has grown more powerful and abundant online than all others: the ranking. Recent entrants to. Every character in , . Recent boot trends, . Each year in music of the 2010s, . Whether they’re of , , or “,” rankings go one step beyond simple aggregational power. At their best, they create a hierarchy for particularly avid fans to evaluate their own tastes, and give critics space to propose which ideas might prove important to future generations.