Who Do You Think You Are?

I'm starting a new series of articles, to be sprinkled about this blog like cocaine at a crime scene. I'm gonna talk a bit about why I do certain things, or say things the way I do.

I'm going to start with the idea of ratings. Ratings like movies,television, or video games? No, ratings like "Best of All Time" or various "Top" whatever lists. I fucking hate these kinds of ratings, because at some point, we're splitting hairs. Realistically, if we could possibly come up with a list of, let's say, the 10 greatest albums of all time, how much better would any one album be than the next? How would you feel about an album that was at best, number 11 of all time? What if that album was your favorite album of all time? Would you care what some asshole list-maker said? Probably not, but if you did, you might email to the author to let them know. Or more likely, complain on the internet...with a link to the article...(see where I'm going with this?)...and get pageviews for the site that made the list. You'd be making someone money who only made you mad, thus losing twice. 

Even before pageviews existed, sparking debate has long been a go-to tactic for interviewers. Every so often, Mike Greenberg will point out that the best way to fill radio time is to ask people "Who's the best team/player in [fill in name of sport]?" and let the guests argue. (Since it's Mike and Mike, there's a 80% chance they'll be talking about football, but the specific sport is unimportant.) Take that same example and replace best athlete/team with best artist/album and you've just created enough content to fill several issues of Rolling Stone. 

My point is that I don't like rating anything in numerical order because it inevitably turns into a fucking circle jerk. It's like if you charged people admission to watch you masturbate, and then the audience started having an orgy, which you taped and sold for profit, Joe Francis style. On top of that, I think most of these lists have at least a couple entries designed to troll the readers. It's the same reason Lil B is on a lot of lists lately. 

So, for these reasons, I won't be making a lot of ordered lists of artists, albums, songs, or videos. My rating system is basically pass/fail. Either I like something, or I don't. Wasting time trying to decide if I like one thing more than another is a waste of my time and yours, and ultimately accomplishes nothing. I'd rather take time thinking up new ways to describe how terrible Drake is.