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Why do people make top ten lists of things?

It's one thing if you make a list of the top ten tallest buildings because it's factual, but I see things lists of the top ten best movies of all time, the top ten most interesting things that happened in 2008, the top ten best cities to live in, etc. The lists seem to always leave out something important, they rank things pretty randomly, and in fact they just seem like some random guy used some random way to decide what his favorite movies are or whatever, so why do I always see these 'top ten XYZ' lists as headlines whenever I log into AOL or yahoo or whatever?

Public Comments

1. Because we like order and besides, it's also entertaining.
2. one of the reasons can be that man always was competitive and wanted to find out who is best and transferred this urge to things and other people too. another one may have a commercial background - whatever is presented as top of the list will be bought. as long as he top-ten lists are based on personal opinion only, it does not bother me - i don't have to listen or look. only if those lists are earmarked as the one and only true ones, i get annoyed.
3. it was all started by david letterman. and the top 3 ways new yorkers celebrate winning the world series... smoking, drinking and fighting.