I'm sure we've all had the experience of being asked (or asking other people ourselves) to rank their Top 5 Favorite Whatevers or to compile a list of the Top 10 [Insert Superlative] ______s Of All Time. There are websites whose existences revolve around almost nothing but rankings (Bleacher Report and Cracked come to mind). The ranking impulse got an especially strong boost after High Fidelity:
I have a friend who insists ranking things is "such a guy thing." I wanted to disagree but couldn't, quite. It does seem to me that the fairer sex is much more content to enjoy things without arranging them into a hierarchy. Why is that?