This is the first and last list article I will ever write. The following is a complete list of my reasons:
1.List articles are not journalism.
Once you have finished with this one, you can proceed to read the following: 18 ways to justify your very existence, 50 people who do things for which you pat yourself on the back and 4 sentences that will cause you to find solidarity with your computer screen.
I used to believe list articles catered to lazy readers, those wanting to skim through an article and read no more than 40 words, all of which would be boldfaced. Then a more upsetting reason for the plethora of these glib, kitschy articles crossed my mind: The real problem is lazy writers.
Journalism has fallen victim to attention deficits. As the daughter and granddaughter of journalists, I take quite seriously the collapse of the integrity of my underpaid dynasty. While journalism, thanks to the Internet, has allowed for pretty much anybody -- myself not excluded -- to be a provider of news, opinions and useless bits of information, it has sacrificed its artistry along the way.
There are many harms inflicted by this type of so-called journalism to which we are increasingly subjected. For one, list articles push forward our culture of "relatability." Enter any English classroom if you care to hear students describe how they preferred a certain author, a character or a writing style that is "relatable." As one college English professor of mine pointed out, "relatable" to whom? This push for writing that does little more than endorse and flatter its intended audience undercuts the very purpose of literature. Literature -- and yes, I believe journalism counts -- does not exist to justify your existence. Rather, literature exists to challenge you and to make you uncomfortable -- be it James Joyce's metaphors or Ann Coulter's political views.
The second harm of sloppy writing comes from the destruction of that special sort of beauty that language and words possess. When information is created in such a way as to encourage skimming rather than reading, the art disappears.
Take, for instance, George Orwell's 1984 and its fictional language of Newspeak. This language, created by the totalitarian government as a means of limiting self-expression (and the potentially government-toppling thoughts that come along with it), destroys the notion of synonyms, simplifying the language by destroying nuances and employing only basic, unimaginative and unprovocative concepts. Search for synonyms for "bad" and you will find "wicked," "inferior," "defective," "putrid," and the list goes on. Newspeak suggests -- as much as a totalitarian government ever suggests -- we replace all of these with "ungood."
Is the literary destruction of this dystopian world purely fiction? Let's consider, for a minute, Facebook's "like" button. No longer must an approval be given even vague originality, and no longer must it take even the 30 or so seconds necessary to compose such a comment; instead, we can click a word that comes with its own idiot-proofed image of a blue thumb, perhaps a less developed form of communication than a caveman's grunt.
The layout for each list article is the same; instead of writing an argument and defending it through well-articulated facts, these writers essentially type up their bullet-pointed notes and submit for publication. Is this truly going to be the twenty-first century literary style that we champion? With the well-deserved and much needed drive to keep art in schools and to educate our children in the humanities, it is equally vital that we retain the ability to articulately convey information and express opinions.
Journalism is not meant to give you a list of feel-goods to start your morning, and it is not meant to provide you with solidarity. Set up a Pinterest account if you want to scroll through a compilation of your own taste and style. Go to journalism when you want to think, when you want to be challenged. Become a journalist when you are bold enough to believe you are capable of making people do that.