For months I’ve been teasing the Poppies, which were going to be my very own Poppington awards program, wrapping up a million bests of the year. But dear reader, I myself have end-of-year wrap-up fatigue. Barack Obama has already weighed in with his meticulously curated list. What am I, a writer (?) with a following of tens of people going to add to the conversation?
I think the end-of-year thing is getting tired anyway, as so many things are. Every celebration has become commodified, every season commercialized. Not even the passage of time is safe from highly specific branding at this point.
It’s rather bleak that instead of simply looking back on our memories and looking forward to our futures, we’re putting together our lists of movies that make us seem cool and knowledgeable, our music to show we have good taste, our books to show we’re well read.
This sort of act has presumably existed forever. Take the holiday card/letter. Not the funny picture kind. The kind in which the head of a family brags about their children’s accomplishments as if Tiffany was the first one to ever get a job after college. These letters and cards are also curations of the best moments, the best memories, the best accomplishments. They, too, are nothing more than posturing to show that we’ve been productive, or travelled, or moved on up in the world in some way.
And then, as I was about to do with the Poppies, there are those of us who not only would like to share our lists as an objective artifact, but who would actually posit that we have some sort of definitive take on it all.
It starts innocently enough. Let’s take Letterboxd as a case study. A place to track movies?!?!? You’d never done that before but come to think of it, it would be nice, right? It would be nice to remember what you’ve seen or see what other people recommend. At first it’s just what you watched. And then it’s your favorites. And then it’s just actually The Best things that came out, as if you’re entitled to some sort of definitive guide because you have an account where you write two sentence reviews for strangers with the same taste as you.
And those of us who aren’t commemorating our incredibly good taste are stuck repeating phrases like “time doesn’t matter,” and “nothing’s real anyways,” and “it’s a construct.” These are phrases that add very little to anybody’s actual lived experience. They are buzzy to the point of having no meaning. They are not as intellectually edgy as you think they are. These phrases, too, are a form of posturing that we use to project to others around this time of year (and beyond) that we are better than those around us. Rather than showing off our taste or how productive we were, they are meant to project how evolved we are, how above it all we are. They suggest that perhaps we know something others don’t.
And then there are the in and out list, where “tastemakers” proselytize their narrow worldviews in the form of what they’re bored of and excited about, trying to will into existence a world in which they see only what they want to and can be rid of what they deem ugly or tacky or passé with a simple click.
I started feeling disillusioned when I put together the Poppies. This is in part because my audience is so small that it felt silly to do something so grand. And in part because I don’t think anybody should take my taste as anything definitive. I surely don’t. I know that I’m biased toward movies with hot gay freaks and that doesn’t always mean that I like the most well-made or intellectually stimulating movies. I also know that I am generally bored by heterosexuality, which makes many big Oscary movies hard for me. My “bests” are meaningless to anybody else and my favorites are well-documented.
And who am I to say what should come or go or to dare to pretend I could ever predict anything at all?
And if I’m so tired of seeing everyone around me do it, why should I jump on board? Why should I be a part of something that I dislike?
This is all to say in a manner that nobody needed or wanted that I will not be doing the Poppies this week. I’m sure George Santos will do something noteworthy in the next week that I can discuss for the first Poppington of 2024.
Cheers to you and yours.