The Only Five Things I Liked in 2023

Slim pickings again this year!

Photo from Rocketmann Team via Pexels.

It’s once again time to look back at the things I liked this year, realize that I liked very little, and wonder if that’s because most stuff sucks or because my soul is even deader than I realized. After some reflection, I’ve decided that stuff sucks — my internal auditing process has absolved me of culpability once again!

But I’m not here to dwell on stuff that sucks. I devote the other 364 days of the year to our braindead politics, fractured society, and entertainment that most people would only watch as some sort of Clockwork Orange-type reprogramming scenario. Today is about things that don’t suck — and I’ve found a few of those things! Below are five things — and indeed, the only five things — from the past year that didn’t make me want to drink gasoline and then swallow a lit match.

5. Tampography, aka “pad printing”

Did you know that a 2D pattern can be applied to a 3D object via a giant, silicon, alien tit? Well it can be, and the process is hypnotic:

I could watch that all day. It’s like ASMR mixed with really, really softcore porn. I suppose that back in the day, a pattern would be painted onto a bowl by a peasant woman over the course of several years. Well, the free ride’s over, peasant women: Giant, quivering Jell-O utters do the job now. I just hope that when writers are displaced by AI (probably around March or April), the results are equally pleasant to watch. Because I find this video entrancing in a way that I can’t really describe. It makes me very glad that I googled “Asian woman moistens giant alien boob”.

4. Taskmaster

Imagine that you had friends. Then imagine that your friends were funny and likable, and that you sometimes played silly games. Obviously, that will never happen, but the long-running British show Taskmaster (which is on YouTube) allows you to glimpse what that experience might be like. The show’s conceit is that five contestant are given frivolous tasks that will inevitably cause them to struggle, and then their struggles are mocked by a large English man (host Greg Davies). It’s fun. Few things are more foundational to comedy than realizing that all of us struggle, fail, and embarrass ourselves, usually in public. Taskmaster crystallizes that sensation and adds a huge, English goon who really is quite funny.

Of all the shows I could have chosen to praise, I picked a British one. And it gets worse: The only other show I liked in 2023 was the BBC faux-documentary Cunk on Earth. I found this troubling — have I turned into one of those obnoxious Americans who only likes British stuff? I carried that thought around for a few days, and then I caught a few minutes of Love, Actually on TV, and folks: I’m happy to report that I am still fully capable of hating British stuff. In fact, I can do more than just hate British stuff: I can summon an appropriate loathing for the British as a people. In fact, I sometimes look at the picture of FDR, Churchill, and Stalin at the Yalta Conference and think “I can’t believe we had to ally with the British to win that war.” So, fear not, readers: This blog will continue to be a bulwark of anti-British invective, and you may interpret my anomalistic praise of two British shows as something of a “Nixon goes to China” moment.

3. Literally anything done well

I went to the dentist, and he needed three tries to get a filling right. I hired a plumber, and he broke several things before eventually fixing the thing I paid him to fix. I went to Panera Bread, ordered bread, and was told that they were out, which makes them less of a “business” and more of “a bunch of people standing in an empty building for no reason”.

Can anyone do anything right? It sometimes seems like the answer is “no”. All of us spend several hours a week dealing with the fumbles and fuckups of witless morons. If I had any potential, that potential would surely be lost to the daily grind of trying to get people to do their job competently. And that’s probably why I was nearly brought to tears by this video of a trucker doing a good job backing up a truck:

Where is this guy in my life? I always encounter the guy attempting an 800 point turn in a major intersection while an entire metropolitan area queues up behind him. Give that man the Nobel Prize in Trucking, and come to think of it: There should be a Nobel Prize in Trucking, and also a Nobel Prize in Food Delivery, a Nobel Prize in $30 Haircuts, and a Nobel Prize in Knowing Shit At Home Depot. Because those things improve our lives and we should incentivize them.

People can do stuff. This guy caught a gator with a trash can. This guy made an amazing shot in whatever sport he was playing. This lady made an already-cute puppy look like a Japanime character. Our species is not doomed to mediocrity; we can do things competently and even spectacularly well. When I see videos of people doing backflips into pants and effortlessly drawing perfect circles, it makes it seem as if all is not lost, and perhaps it is reasonable to expect more from the guy writing “Jorph” on my Starbucks cup.

2. My son

My first-born child had a solid year. A penchant for goofy behavior like splashing in the tub and laughing when being held upside-down sees him rocket up this list all the way to #2 (after coming in at #4 shortly after his birth last year). Time will tell whether he can stay on the list, but he’s off to a good start!

It truly makes no difference to me whether or not other people have kids. As of this writing, I am neither a dictator trying to build an army or a cult leader trying to swell the ranks of my followers, so I don’t have a dog in that particular fight. But I have noticed that a morose “no-one should ever bring a child into this awful world” attitude has become common in some circles, and birth rates are down worldwide. So, let me just say, not for nothin’: Having this child seems to have been a fairly good idea.

Babies are work. My son wakes up at 5:30 and has shown a preternatural ability to get diarrhea at the worst possible times (e.g. bath, car trip, second inning of a Washington Nationals game). But it turns out that we are genetically programmed to feel affection for these things (babies). The part of my brain that says “drop him in a mailbox and walk away” is always out-voted by the part of my brain that says “no, don’t”. And a lot of the time, it’s not even close.

1. Cats

It’s a three-peat for cats! They take the top spot on this list for the third year in a row. Just when people thought the franchise was wearing thin, they came out with blockbuster content like this:

The evidence that cats are replacing comedy writers continued to accrue in 2023. Here are the year-on-year growth rates for various streaming services:

From Nielsen.

What’s the fastest-growing streaming service? YouTube. What’s on YouTube? Fucking cats, motherfucker, people are watching cats. And why wouldn’t they? Cats are hilarious. Meanwhile, of the eight Emmy nominees for Outstanding Comedy, five are shows that I wouldn’t watch on a dare (but I remain employable by not specifying which five!). Comedy writers need to accept that we’re getting out-competed by a better product. I hope that comedy writers step up our game in 2024, but I sort of think “why bother?” when I see top-tier content like this: