No More Winners and Losers Lists

I thought I might make truncated lists of winners and losers of the year  for the end of 2021 - five on each list - and I had some probable candidates for either side.  But as the year has worn on, I have come to a decision.  Not only will there be no winners and losers lists this year on this blog, there will be no winners and losers lists for any year hereafter.

If there's one thing 2021 has taught me, it's that we are all winners and losers at one time or another, and quantifying successes and failures is a waste of time.  I don't pay enough attention to current movies or TV shows to gauge the biggest hits and flops, for example, and politicians such as President Joe Biden have proved that one can experience the best of times (declining COVID cases in the spring, the infrastructure bill) and worst of times (Afghanistan, Delta) all at once.

Also, looking at individuals who have had good years, I've noticed how the wrong people tend to have great success, all of it undeserved.  A particular celebrity I don't like now stars in a TV series that is described as the biggest hit show of 2021.  Why do I want to acknowledge that?   And a person's or institution's failure can overshadow its biggest success.  Netflix, for example, won a record number of Emmys in 2021, but subsequent fallout over Dave Chappelle's Netflix show, in which Chappelle badmouthed transsexuals, rendered that achievement meaningless.   

Sports?  Katie Ledecky solidly asserted herself as the greatest female swimmer of all time at the 2020 - no, 2021 Tokyo Olympics, but her victories don't mean so much when there was practically no one there to see them in person thanks to COVID.  And even though the U.S. men's soccer team won the CONCACAF Gold Cup, their failure to qualify for the Tokyo Olympics made them a laughing stock once again.  You gotta feel sorry for these guys.  Even when they win, they lose. 

I can't do this anymore.  I'm rarely satisfied with my lists after I've published them, thinking I might have left someone out or might have been premature in choosing whom I left in - some of choices for winners at the end of one year were overturned by their colossal failures the following year - and it's a pain in the neck to construct these lists.  So that's it.  I'm done.  No more winners and losers lists.  It's over.

Sorry.