Why does everyone scold the lists of the best for the year, but continue to make them
"Yes, who cares about all these results of your year," - no, no, yes, and everybody flashes in my head, if not on the fifth, but on the tenth post in friendly tape. Indeed, the value of other people's lists is not obvious: is it boasting, search for approval, procrastination? Or maybe all together? Julia Phillips found out from the experts what motivates us all to make personal tops, how they help us and whether we should pay attention to other people's recommendations.
Making lists with the results of the year seems to be some kind of privileged activity: only a real connoisseur and an educated person can isolate the ten best films, books or albums. But as a psychologist studying the behavior of young children, I have a different look at this annual ritual. When I read such lists, I remember that people of any age tend to organize everything around them. In this sense, the compilation of lists is a more mature version of the game in which the child builds his toy cars in orderly rows, and the purpose of all this is the same - to organize the surrounding chaos.
The passion for laying out everything on the shelves is peculiar to the curator, philatelist and any child who collects words (9 words a day, every day from 18 months to 6 years). Annual lists bring this style to the absolute: we mark every December 31 with the end of the year and fix our intentions with the help of precise plans. Ultimately, these lists are another manifestation of our need to streamline our own experiences.
But the choice of the best films and albums pursues another goal: this way you can restore order not only in the material but also in the social environment. Calling this or that thing the most outstanding for the year, we categorize ourselves. Our choices reflect what kind of person we are, or at least what we hope to be. Am I cutting or conservative? Boring or prudent? Insightful or average woman? Check out my personal top artists for 2015 to find out.
At the end of the year, people tend to reflect. We think about where we were this year, what we did, how we see the future. Many of my peers send out New Year cards, in which they write down their brief results of the year. We do this in order to share our experience and because we want to learn from our relatives and friends. Memories of past help to move forward - I think people for this and look back at their experience.
It can be painful to reflect on the experiences of the tests or to sort out your own failures. Some people use these lists to procrastinate, that is, they find excuses in them. Others to-do list for the next year may be frightening in its length and impossibility. But the list can also help to keep up with goals. Summing up the year is quite sensible, so make your own list, but without fanaticism. And make sure that you do not forget about all the good things that have done.
Why do we like to make tops and read them? They satisfy at least four needs: fixation, control, visible results and creativity. The New Year is reminiscent of the passage of time and awakens deep feelings, both positive and negative, and the lists are our way of managing the psychology of experience.
We don’t want to lose sight of important things, so it’s good that you can organize them. You can fill in the gaps, complement the experience, expand horizons or plan entertainment - all these actions give us a pleasant feeling that everything is under control. And viewing the recommendations of those whom we respect helps us to be inspired and move forward with the feeling that we have either already seen something important, or have a look - and we know what it is.
Listing is reassuring. The internal vortex of desires, goals, choices, and anxieties can be overwhelming. A clear plan, drawn up with an eye on the recommendations of the trusted, pacifies anxiety and spurs motivation. Endless possibilities are transformed into understandable actions - and it feels good. Creating a personal "to do" gives you a sense of control. In addition, we feel protected when we think that the money will be spent in a dignified manner. And when someone else thinks for you, there is a feeling that you are important to someone.
More lists - a kind of crafts. We think and systematize much to achieve a certain result. The choice can be difficult for people who are open to everything new, indecisive, or those who want to keep up with everything that culture produces. But we need art and culture to be more healthy: research shows that expressing yourself or identifying yourself with artists improves mood, reduces stress, and gives hope.
All cultures offer some rituals to mark turning points. While the New Year is celebrated as a holiday, a gloomy sensation, because time cannot be turned back, is still present. Fear of regret, loss, or change can be very disturbing. The lists with the results of the year make it possible to accept, evaluate the experience and change the previous one, and also to be inspired by it. December tops are the epitome of a second chance and the source of the feeling that we are doing everything right.
The world is a chaotic and fragmented thing, especially when it comes to culture. We are streamed weekly with a stream of opportunities: new TV shows, films and songs float to the surface in order to drown under the next in a moment. How to catch the best of the year, if every cool thing instantly turns out to be in the shadow of the next cool thing? And here come the compilers of lists.
Being a film critic, I’m already looking forward to January, when I’ll have to make a recommendation list of films that I’ve already seen and which will only be released in the future. When selecting the finalists, I don’t just include everything I’ve seen lately (here you can see my top-15). Lists are, in fact, terribly limited; even if I have to collect 55 films that were released in the outgoing year, there will still be some masterpieces that were out of luck to get on the screens (here, for example, a dozen of these).
But in this difficult task to reduce everything to one group that deserves attention, there is a certain nobility. The key to the messy media landscape of the 21st century is to assume the functions of a curator. Lists stand up for protection when the greatest film in the world can at any time overshadow a fresh viral video. Well, in the end, it's just an easy, pleasant and practical way to digest information.
This, of course, is not a new phenomenon. Susan Sontag's landmark essay "Notes on Camp" is actually a listing of 58 reflections on the stated topic. But making lists is especially important during the pre-New Year turmoil and informational chaos, which also turns out to be under the thumb of the Oscar race and marketing plans, as well as memory lapses that critics are beginning to suffer: if the film was released in the first quarter of the year, will they remember in December? The final annual lists provide a guarantee that he will have a chance.
The photo: cover photo via Shutterstock