My resolution for 2014 is simple. I'm saying no to listicles.
No. No. Hold your applause. Although this is an admirable purist I'm not looking for praise. I'm simply trying to reclaim my brain.
As with most resolutions, there was a time when this wasn't a problem. Listicles simply didn't interest me. I didn't read them. didn't look. Didn't care.
Then, sometime in the last year or so, they began to absorb my attention. Just as they absorbed most of the journalism industry. I had, to borrow from Paul Thomas Anderson, strayed from the proper path. Because listicles are potato chips.
"Oh," I'll think, "I'll just have one of these." Then it's an hour later and I've looked at 400 pictures of dogs or babies or cakes or something even more embarrassing. And I think the same thing one thinks after finishing a sleve of Oreos: "Jesus, man, get yourself together."
So I'm done. It probably won't be easy. But it's necessary because I can feel myself dulling.
Listicles are dead to me.