For my 2005 New Year's resolution, I have vowed to become listless.
Not listless as defined by Webster, though there's something temptingly subversive in today's go-go society about becoming "disinclined to exert effort." No, I aspire to a redefined listlessness, one that rejects the Countdown Culture that has infected the media and resulted in an information empire that churns out list, after list, after list.
My vow of countdown celibacy began New Year's Day. I abstained from reading or watching the numerous media rundowns that presumed to tell me what's in, what's out, who's hot and who's not. By day's end, I had avoided dozens of "Best of 2004" TV marathons highlighting, among other things, the celebrities with the most money, best butts, biggest yachts, hardest bodies. You get the picture.
Going forward, list avoidance tops my to-do list. I'll be tuning out the pompous media name droppers who would list the best, coolest or hottest CDs, movies and TV shows. Likewise, I refuse to be told where I should go and what I should eat, drink and say before moving on to the next list-approved location. Elitism be damned.
Anyone who has perused a magazine rack, watched TV or surfed the Web lately knows just how pervasive this has become. Cable networks like VH1 and E! practically owe their existence to lowest-common-denominator tripe like "The 100 Hottest Hotties," "The 100 Most Shocking Moments in Entertainment" and "The 101 Juiciest Hollywood Hook-Ups."
Although it's understandable that such glamour peddlers would contract list fever, it's baffling how a respected mag like Rolling Stone could succumb. Compromising the counterculture rep it earned during the '60s, Rolling Stone is hobbling into middle age with a bad case of countdown craziness. In recent years, the magazine has run splashy cover stories devoted to the "100 Best Singles Of Rock 'n' Roll," "The Top 100 Albums in Rock 'n' Roll," and, most recently, the "500 Greatest Songs of All Time."
Rolling Stone is just one of a growing number of offenders. Iconic pop culture bellwethers like "Entertainment Tonight," "Access Hollywood," Vanity Fair, Ebony, Forbes and countless others rely increasingly on lists for their content. The indie cinema Web site FilmThreat.com recently published a list titled "The Frigid 50: The Coldest People in Hollywood." Guitar World magazine received gobs of press for its countdown of the "100 Worst Riffs, Licks & Solos of All Time." The lists go on and on.
For a writer like myself, unplugging from all of this is no small consideration. In the vaunted Information Age, lists serve as cultural Cliffs Notes -- easily digested primers on everything from food to fashion. As a single, self-styled iconoclast who largely eschews TV and movies in favor of books, blogs and newsmagazines, I can't help worrying: Is the pursuit of a list-free life self-defeating? As meaningless as they often are, lists not only help me feign knowledge of stuff I don't care much about; they sometimes help put food on my table. Will it be harder for me to stay on top of things without constantly consulting the media's Inventory of Cool?
Further complicating things, I live in Los Angeles, a city so enamored of the "now" it shoulders aside any celebrity, restaurant or trend unfortunate enough to slip from the cross hairs of media-ordained relevance. In a town where the Hollywood sign passes for an ancient historical landmark, shunning lists and the transience they celebrate could spell social suicide.
Yet despite my disdain for the almighty countdown, I, like most people, find them almost impossible to resist. As evidenced by the skyrocketing popularity of talk radio and commentary TV, Americans love not only opinions but the fury they can inspire. We read the "best-of" lists, then grind our molars to a powder when they fail to acknowledge our favorite movie, CD or athlete. In post-millennial America, nothing is more "in" than being enraged.
Initially, the lists seemed delectably clever. In the postwar years of "Father Knows Best," the In-and-Out list ostensibly aspired to separate the hepcats from the squares. Back then, countdowns were relatively rare: Mr. Blackwell's Worst-Dressed, the Fortune 500 and maybe some year-end "best of" lists were it.
Now, even The Post isn't immune to countdown fever. Among other "insights," the newspaper's own 2004 In-and-Out list deemed guitar solos, "bands that look like the Allman Brothers" and "Howard Dean mobs" to be in, while Clay Aiken, the hit TV show "Nip/Tuck" and the NBA were considered outside the range of pop culture radar. If you've kept up with the news, you know just how "out" these judgments actually turned out to be.
But nobody remembers, which is partly the point. The In-and-Out list was never supposed to be taken seriously. It was intended as a tongue-in-chic goof that allowed consumers to compare their opinions against those of self-appointed tastemakers. But it's possible that the list and the Countdown Culture it has spawned have lapsed into irrelevance. There's a tyranny to it all that discourages independent thought and mocks American individualism. Yet we continue to read and watch. While researching this rant, I came across a Web site called Lists of Bests (www.listsofbests.com). The Countdown Culture has hatched a rundown of rundowns.
It's enough to make you listless.
