One of the many ideas I had for this Substack was to publish a series of Top 30 lists leading up to my 30th birthday…and then that day came and went without a single one. I then thought that as long as I was still 30, I could release these throughout the year…which I’m attempting to do now, despite my rapidly approaching 31st birthday.
I’ve written extensively about my love of lists, how I can’t stop ranking and listing pretty much everything in my life, even if maybe a list isn’t the best way to talk or think about art. I think they’re fun, despite my compulsion to do them, and I’m going to try to post a few of these before I turn 31, and maybe more after…I mean, none of these rules actually matter and I can do what I want with my own blog!
If you haven’t tried before, a Top 30 list is a difficult thing to wrangle. Top 10s inevitably feel like you’re leaving things out, but can usually be whittled down to your very favorite things. Top 50s or 100s take a lot of work to put together, but give you a lot to work with. A top 30…well, it often results in maybe 10-20 big favorites, and then a mess of entries that could really swap out for others depending on the hour. I’ve decided to approach these lists differently for each category. For some I might rank each entry leading up to my very favorite. For others I might stick with alphabetical order until a top 5. And some I might just ignore ranking alltogether. Many might contain more than 30 actual entries, as I’ll combine things that just don’t feel right apart from each other. Whatever feels right!
Here’s when you should expect to see these initial, pre-31st birthday lists:
Wed, May 15th: My 30 Favorite TV Shows
Wed, May 22nd: My 30 Favorite Video Games
Wed, May 29th: My 30 Favorite Books (and Book Series)
Wed, June 5th: My 30 Favorite Fictional Characters
I hope they’re as fun to read as they will be to put together. Thanks!