Today’s date is October 10th, 2010. In other words, 10/10/10. Nothing special, just another ordinary day on the calendar, right? WRONG. Considering the sad fact that most of us won’t grow up to be supercentenarians and see the year 2110 , I think it’s important to take the time to really appreciate an opportunity when one presents itself. 
That being said, on this numerically symmetrical holiday for obsessive compulsives, I’d like to pay homage to one of the Internet and pop-culture’s favorite memes of the last half-century: The Top 10 List.
If you’re anything like me, you’ve found yourself, either by choice or accidentally, staring at a Top 10 from time to time. They come in all shapes and colors, in all manner of mediums, from blogs, to print media, sports newscasts, to comedy bits. They’ve become and ever-increasing staple of the daily American information diet. Never the kind of person to miss a chance to pontificate on an otherwise innocuous subject, the sheer volume of lists created every day begs the question, why are these things so darn popular?
Before I continue, I should make a quick distinction. While researching, I wasn’t looking for the history of structural data: that has been in existence for far too long. I was after the hard-nosed, high concept, in-your-face Top 10 lists you see if your spam inbox every day. The search was on.
Surprisingly enough, my wanderings lead me to a long forgotten, yet highly influential 1985 tiff between the writers of the defunct Late Night with David Letterman on NBC, and the widely read, People Magazine. People had been publishing such columns as “The Worst 10” beginning that year, and like-minded magazines were beginning to follow suit. The listings themselves weren’t exactly “newsworthy,” but that’s where David Letterman came in. Hoping to add flare and give a satirical touch to an otherwise faddish magazine column, the Late Night Top 10 List was born.
AP reporter Larry McShane, in an interview published on Nov. 2nd, 1991 in the Reading Eagle with then head Late Night writer Steve O’Donnell, expounds on the origins of the original concept.
“We had two basic motives: one, to kill time, and two to kill time over and over. Initially we thought it would run about a week or two like the Giant Door Knob or The Guy Under the Seats sketches.”
Describing himself as “then unsure” on whether the Top 10 lists would connect with Late Night audiences. I think the test of time has given him the answer.
Only four years after the initial broadcast of the first Letterman Top 10 List (as seen in the embedded video above), O’Donnel and Letterman were signing deals on the second book release, the first having sold over 500,000 copies amid 16 weeks on Publisher’s Weekly best seller list. Little did they know that on that fateful night in 1985, they were opening up the doors for what would become the groundwork for a generation of consumers on the Internet that would take their concept to a whole new level.
Smash cut to present day – I’ve got over forty web sites on my Google reader account, and no less than fifteen of them are sporting headlines with the titles “Top 10”, “Top 8 Ways”, or “Top 13 Things You Can Do With blah blah blah.” My recent favorite is “7 Past and Future Philip K. Dick Adaptations.” So saturated have we become, the meme of listing the “top anything” has sparked an entirely new way to process information in the digital age. Shareable content in small, precise, packages made for consumption makes for a quick and easy read in a time when we are literally bombarded with information and searching for a way to filter out the important from the spam.
The tried and tested listing format has so far stood the test of time, but I’m beginning to wonder how it will continue to evolve, as new information technologies take hold and social media continues to open doors to imaginative and dynamic ways of sharing information. So here’s to you Top 10 list, on this celebration day of 10s, may you continue to educate, infuriate, or just plain make me laugh for the next century…or at least until something better comes along.
