Critics say that life isn’t a listicle. We can’t distill the multi-faceted aspects of modern existence into five bullet points. I agree. A listicle isn’t the be-all-end-all. But it’s a good place to start. It’s like a table of contents. It helps us figure out whether the writer we’re reading really has anything to say.
Millennials aren’t just interested in 140 characters worth of soundbite news. We like long form, but well-written long form.
We’re overwhelmed by a fire-hose of information coming at us and that includes, let’s face it, a lot bad writing. Sure, there’s a lot of good writing out there, but we have to wade through a lot of online goo to get to the nuggets of wisdom. The popularity of listicles reflects a more profound reality that we need a way to filter and process the information being thrown at us. Listicles can help us do that.