English

Noun

listicle ‎(plural listicles)

1. (informal) An article based around a list.
   • 2011 January, Spin, page 4:

     Dishy books! Bruno Mars! Human excrement! Relieve the year that was in handy listicle form, on page 52.

   • 2013 December 2, Maria Konnikova, “A List of Reasons Why Our Brains Love Lists”, in The New Yorker, archived from the original on 27 March 2014:

     “6 TITANIC SURVIVORS WHO SHOULD HAVE DIED.” “THESE 9 NAZI ATROCITIES WILL MAKE YOU LOSE FAITH IN HUMANITY.” “5 INSANE PLANS FOR FEEDING WEST BERLIN YOU WON’T BELIEVE ARE REAL.” These are just some of the lists that the comic strip “XKCD” recently joked would result from retrofitting the twentieth century’s most newsworthy events with modern, Internet-style headlines. Despite the growing derision of listicles exemplified by the comic, numbered lists—a venerable media format—have become one of the most ubiquitous ways to package content on the Web.

   • 2014 April 7, Megan Garber, “Victorian Buzzfeed: 'The 25 Stages From Courtship to Marriage': Here's a listicle from the 19th century that pokes fun at ... listicles”, in The Atlantic, archived from the original on 13 April 2014:

     The Internet did not invent the listicle. Lists-as-arguments—lists-as-stories—have, of course, been around since long, long before Buzzfeed came along. And they haven't just been around; they've also been both playing with and poking fun at the list form itself, one item at a time. I mention that because the Public Domain Review has unearthed this gem, "The 25 Stages from Courtship to Marriage," a set of hand-tinted stereographs depicting a sampling of those stages, generally from the perspective of the woman being courted. The cards are undated, PDR notes, but they mostly likely originated in the late 19th century.

   • For more examples of usage of this term, see Citations:listicle.

Related terms

• charticle