"Five great places to eat duck fat." "Top ten beaches on the Gulf Coast." On and on and on it goes, the top five, top 10 and -- sometimes -- top 50. What if I like 13 beaches on the Gulf Coast? What if there's really only one place that does duck fat right?
Herewith, the top four reasons that I hate top five lists:
1. There are rarely exactly five things -- not four, not six -- that fit the category.
2. They're frequently aggregated lists. Some dude sitting in an office feeds "top five duck fat" into Google and rewrites the results to look original. (Yes, I know. Some of us do really personally research top-five lists. But I have the feeling that more do not.)
3. They're the trendy new way to deal with travel writing so that nobody has to be exposed to the ickiness of narrative. I happen to like narrative. Doing it right takes lots of reporting, of course, and not "we went here and then we went there." I think we have bad travel writing to blame, in part, for the popularity of top 5 and top 10 lists.
4. People actually believe these lists and adhere to them too strictly. Sure, I like to see what my fellow travelersdo so I can try to repeat the experiences. But if you only go to what others consider the top five restaurants in Des Moines, you'll never really know Des Moines.
That's it. No five. Deal with it.
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