Lists Suck

http://www.complex.com/blogs/2010/08/04/what-it-look-like-our-10-favorite-video-game-character-rip-offs/comment-page-1/#comment-69740

My big pet peeve these days is how people seem to love constructing these numbered lists in articles. I’ve griped about it before, but it seems to be the trend these days (sadly, that trend means the state of writing is deteriorating). Anyway…I hate lists. It’s a lazy why to write, because what easier way is there to create controversy than to mix up the order of things? Most lists don’t even argue a point, they just list the items in a certain order and then state the merits of each item. The reader doesn’t really know why #5 is better than #2, it just is. But that’s arbitrary. It has nothing to do with writing, which includes, *gasp*, constructing an argument. God forbid someone with an opinion will have to do that in an article.

Which brings me to the link I posted above. I’m griping over this article because “ripping off” is taking something else and acknowledging it as your own, ala, plagiarizing. The creator of Metal Gear has come out to say that Solid Snake was modeled after Snake Plissken. So there goes that. If you want to talk classic ripping off, check out how Disney ripped off The Lion King from this Japanese cartoon.