Plus (bonus!) five ways listicles differ from … You’ll find out.
–––
If you pay close attention to your Twitter feed (or Cosmo), you’ll notice the ubiquitous numbered article, or as they’ve been unfortunately dubbed, the listicle.
- 8 Ways to be More Productive
- 6 Reasons She Loves Shoes More Than You
- 9 Habits of the Paranoid Shut-In.
If you think you are immune to the lure of the listicle, pay attention to what you click on. We are all under their spell and powerless to resist.
Why are they so popular? Let’s count off a few reasons.
- Numbered posts satisfy our need to have all of the content we consume be compartmentalized. Our calories are counted, our attention span is split into lengths of TV episodes or playlists. Savvy publications entice you with something that is both thorough in its reach but easily digestible.
- We love value. A numbered post implies that nothing is wasted; it’s all lean meat. It’s the Dollar Menu. There is no need for proper segues and writers can basically publish their outlines.
- Numbered posts take the reader back to an earlier, simpler time when David Letterman first released his Top Ten List. It’s nostalgic and every numbered post pays indirect homage to the original itemizer.
- A numbered format gives us a little math with our reading and both sides of the brain get in on the fun. One side reads while the other counts down items like a vampire puppet.
- People love lists – numbered posts create a tidy world that simultaneously opens and closes the loop for the OCD head case in all of us.
BONUS
And to flesh things out and drop a few odd thoughts into your head, let’s look at how listicles differ from testicles. And who doesn’t think of testicles when they hear the word listicles. It can’t be just me. Can it?
Listicles | Testicles | ||
When you look at them, you want a count of more than one. | When you look at them, you want a count of exactly two. | ||
You find them in every magazine. | You find them in very specific magazines. | ||
Twitter feeds are full of them. | Locker rooms are full of them. | ||
They’ve grown in popularity. | They’ve grown since adolescence. | ||
Most are a little uneven. | Most are a little uneven. | ||
Feature Photo Credit: Getty Images , Compartments: orijinal/Flickr, David Letterman: By Alan Light via Wikimedia,Commons, Dollar Menu: Big Ed Mustapha/Flickr, The Count: David, Bergin, Emmett and Elliott/Flickr, Tidy Desk: thepatrick/Flickr