Summer reissue: The rankers become the ranked: Hera Lindsay Bird tackles the most meta ranking of them all.
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There’s nothing like a savagely judgemental list, pitting things against one another in descending order of quality. While some may say that the humble ranking is a neoliberal concept that valorises hierarchies over mutual interdependence and collaboration, if there’s anything the Olympics has taught us, it’s that sometimes there can only be one winner.
When I pitched this idea, over a calendar year ago, it seemed like a good idea at the time. How hard could a ranking of rankings be? And yet there have been many times over the last fortnight when I’ve wanted to grab a carton of the 3rd best New Zealand canned wine and crawl into the 6th best New Zealand tunnel to die.
Included in this ranking is every ranking written by a current or former staff writer for The Spinoff.
Not included are the television-based “power rankings.” Although the power rankings look and behave like rankings, it’s my contention these rankings aren’t true rankings at all, in the same way that the electric eel isn’t really an eel, but a species of Knifefish pretending. While they’re a great format for unpacking the week in television, including them in the rankings proper would only clutter and diminish the integrity of the format.
The second big decision I had to make was whether to include rankings by guest writers. Although many of the guest rankings are extremely strong and worthy of note, it seemed too brutal to consign some of the feebler attempts to the bottom of the cultural slag pile. And besides, there are only so many hours in the day. Another great concept for a ranking.
My last note on selection criteria is that I haven’t included any of my own rankings in this list, partly because it would destroy the ironclad reputation for journalistic integrity I’ve worked a lifetime to cultivate. And partly because reading so many rankings has taught me the error of my ways. I learned a great many things during this process. Rankings are at their best when they clearly explain their selection criteria. They are, if possible, definitive and complete. You have to showcase the worst, to let the best shine. The rankings need to have a strong internal logic and discuss the relationality of the items. And the very best rankings have, at minimum, 15 entries, although my personal preference is for rankings that cross the 80+ blood-brain barrier.
While it was mostly a joy to read back over these pieces, I worry reading so many rankings in under a fortnight has done permanent damage to my brain and I’m only going to be able to think in descending hierarchical order for the rest of my life. Anyway, here they are: all 85 Spinoff rankings, ranked from worst to best.
85. Beans
A ranking so controversial and full of ersatz beans it spawned an independent inquiry and a follow-up ranking. While this list has a Dada-esque charm, ultimately it failed as a ranking, because it refused to reward the narrative expectations of its reader, like a crime novel in which nobody did it. Sean Bean is not a bean. Mr Bean is not a bean. Jelly bean tomatoes and bean bags are emphatically not beans. And yet, we should all be grateful to this list, because the follow-up guest ranking by a panel of bean connoisseurs is one of the best rankings The Spinoff has ever published and would have easily made the top ten if it wasn’t automatically disqualified by our strict pre-selection criteria.
84. Tim Tams
No shade to the humble Tim Tam. But there just aren’t enough Tim Tams flavours to support this premise. The only worthy six-digit ranking I can think of is The Mitford Sisters (Nancy > Jessica > Pam > Unity > Diana > Deb). But unlike the Mitford Sisters, the varieties here are undeniably dull. White chocolate. Dark chocolate. Double chocolate. Regular chocolate. You might as well be ranking the most absorbent paper napkins or maternity support stockings.
Admittedly I have fallen into this very trap myself when ranking the meagre selection of vegetarian bacons. But the scales have fallen from my eyes, and I would never rank something with fewer than ten items again. The format is just too powerful for the subject matter, like using a firehose to water your peonies. If you’re a hardcore biscuit enthusiast, I would lovingly redirect you to the very bottom of the list, where Tim Tams can be seen in their natural habitat, amongst the gingernuts and coconut Krispies.
It’s abundantly clear that this ranking is a cynical attempt to shoehorn as many dog pictures as possible into an ideologically unforgiving format. Yes, the costumes are adorable, but the subject is too vast and unwieldy to support any pretence of objectivity. Just as we must embrace the reality of death to appreciate the miracle of life, a good ranking must have finitude.
The idea of ranking costumes isn’t a bad one, and I would argue that if anyone wanted to go hard, ranking every Anne Geddes baby would be a great alternative concept. But when it comes to the infinite variety of canine sartorial self-expression, save it for the family Whatsapp.
While this list is a fitting eulogy to Pods (gone but not forgotten), it is neither long nor complete enough to give satisfaction. The sweets are discontinued and therefore can only be ranked against that cracked mirror we call memory. Although there’s a kind of wistful “Chevy to the Levy” nostalgia at play, the author is clearly cognitively bamboozled, as he’s mistakenly ranked the obviously superior Cadbury Peppermint and Strawberry Roses as culinary duds. I miss Snifters as much as the next cinema-goer, but it’s time to bid farewell to childish things and learn to appreciate the candy around us.
81. Every pedestrian who ignored Wellington Phoenix FC’s new logo launch, ranked
Not everything deserves a numerical order. A good rule of thumb (#1 digit of the human hand) is that if the title of your ranking has more than ten words, your subject is probably too specific.
80, 79 & 78. Abysses to gaze into; Bubbles nearly as good as the trans-Tasman bubble; Lockdown sale items
Emily Dickinson’s success was largely posthumous. Vermeer was considered average by his peers. And Bach was more revered in death than he was in life. Perhaps the author of these three pieces will one day come to be recognized as a deconstructionist genius, whose contribution to the world of rankings was unappreciated in her own lifetime.
While the writing is excellent, the ranking criteria here is utter chaos. These three rankings have a Rorschachian, free-jazz charm, which confounds expectations and challenges preconceived notions of hierarchy and taxonomy. As far as rankings go, these are fun, but definitely for the more avant-garde palette.
77 & 76. Tear-jerking ads and TV pets
There is no such thing as a heartwarming or “tear-jerking” commercial. Not even if it has a dog in it. No advertisement will ever make me cry unless the brand manager for Panadol Rapid Fast Pain Relief decides to kill my mother live on air.
75. Recipe bases and meal companions
Although this list was published many years before the deli section packet sauce renaissance, this ranking deserves our respect, because it paved the way for rankings to come. While the handheld stone tools of prehistory wouldn’t stand up to modern drone warfare, without said tools, we would have missed out on many iconic and memorable wars, such as the First World and Second World Wars, not to mention all eight of the Crusades.
While this list evoked a strong wave of nostalgia for the meals of yesteryear, the concept as a whole just doesn’t hang together. You can’t compare canned soup to taco seasoning kits. It just doesn’t make sense.
74 & 73. Celebrity cake portraits and Celebrity baking skills
If it came to a pistols-at-dawn situation, celebrity cakes would get the draw on baking skills. But while celebrity cakes is a great ranking concept, there just aren’t enough entries to satisfy, like opening a bag of mini grain waves, only to encounter three measly chips.
72. Celebrity beards
Perhaps this is rank misandry, but I struggle to tell the difference here.
A brilliant concept, flawed by a lack of ambition. Like only painting half of the Sistine Chapel. Go big or go home.
While I admire the concept behind this extremely shambolic and provocative ranking, any list with Duncan Garner in the top spot has somehow gone terribly wrong.
69. Workplace robots of New Zealand
Didn’t we learn anything from Battlestar Galactica?
68. Haka world record attempts
This one’s on me. But unless you’re making Olympic history, I have an intense dislike for world record attempts, especially those involving large crowds of people. Ohhhhh my god u baked the world’s largest calzone? Should we tell everyone? Should we throw a party? Should we invite Yotam Ottolenghi?
67. Chasers
While I believe that most things can and should be ranked, The Chasers are a notable exception. To me, the purpose of the Chasers is that they represent different but equal Jungian archetypes. Trying to pit them against each other defeats the purpose. It’s like trying to rank the Spice Girls (impossible.)
66 & 65. Road Tunnels and Tunnel-boring machines
I anticipate that this will be one of the more controversial ranking placements on the list. But after the fifth tunnel, my eyes started to glaze over. Perhaps I’m the wrong target demographic, but I was glad to see the light at the end of this ranking. Similarly, I found the tunnel-boring machines a little (tunnel) boring. Sorry to all the Motat stans.
64. Every Mike Pero finger point in The Apprentice Aotearoa
Kudos to the author for making something beautiful out of the grim subject matter, like one of those World of Wearable Art corsets constructed from rusty bottlecaps. A hideous concept, executed well.
63. Ikea foods
This would have been a great ranking if anyone had actually tasted any of the food, but as far as I can tell, this list was purely hypothetical. At the date of publication, IKEA has still not made it to Auckland!
A beautiful snapshot in time, eloquently captured, but like phonebooks and fax machines, it has outlived its cultural relevance. It hasn’t outlived Wayne Brown’s mayoralty, but let’s give it a few more years.
61. The maddest Insta-breakfasts of The Mad Butcher
I have to admit I have a soft spot for this ranking. I’m always happy to look at a candid snap of an aesthetically grotesque meal. On the other hand, like the Mad Butcher himself, this ranking doesn’t play by the rules. Some of these breakfasts are NOT breakfasts, they are explicitly lunches. And the picture of the Mad Butcher wearing a hot dog outfit is in brazen contravention of the ranking’s own parameters.
60. Politicians holding things
A likely thing for them to do.
59. Place names
This is an excellent list. It’s a fascinating list. In a ranking of lists, it would be up there with the Forbes Billionaires Index, and Santa’s Naughty or Nice. What it isn’t, is a ranking. While the place names on this list are technically in descending order, there is no real sense of hierarchy here, or any clues as to why one place name is superior to another. Perhaps this is simply too divisive and controversial a subject to be explicitly hierarchical, but I can’t rank it any higher, as there’s no actual ranking going on.
58. Potatoes
Marge Simpson would think this ranking is “neat.”
Slightly better than a lump of coal. Nowhere near as good as a Terry’s chocolate orange.
56 & 55. Steve Parr slides and Suzanne Paul cameos
We’re getting into “pretty damn good” territory and we haven’t even broken the top 50. Like the Kazakhstan gymnastics team, these rankings only suffer in comparison to the all-time greats. I have a slightly nepotistic interest in the Steve Parr slides, as my dad once won Sale of the Century. But the archival footage is absolutely worth a watch. The Suzanne Paul cameos are equally niche, but essential watching for any diehard Paulhead.
54, 53, 52 & 51. Low-alcohol beer, non-alcoholic spirits, hard seltzers and new-wave RTDs
While these beverage-based rankings are all respectable attempts, there are a few fatal flaws. In the “new wave RTDs” the only ranked beverages were those which were NZ-made, and described themselves as “clean and/or natural.” In the hard seltzer ranking, despite testing up to 36 flavours of seltzer, the testing team only ranked the top ten. The non-alcoholic spirit tasting and low-alcohol beers were curtailed by time and local availability. While these are reasonable constraints, I felt that the savage pre-selection criteria dulled my enjoyment of the format.
This one gave me flashbacks to the time I confidently told a playground bully that PO wasn’t the correct spelling of the word “poo.” In my defence, he was trying to set fire to the school. In his defence, he was trying to set fire to the school using pencil shavings and a magnifying glass.
49. Wellington second-hand bookshops
This series of rankings is one of the more practical contributions to the format. Perfect if you’re new to Wellington and trying to find a second-hand copy of The Vintner’s Luck.
48. Advent calendars
I loved the concept of the advent calendar ranking. I was rooting for the advent calendar ranking. But rankings that only feature the very best of something will never be truly great. A little judicious negativity is what separates a good ranking from an online gift guide.
God this ranking depressed me. At my house, we love a dinner variation known as “Bunnings Sauage Sizzle.” Butter a few thick slabs of white bread, fry a few onions and vege sausages and donate a gold coin to the local netball team of your choice. When I went online, to confirm my suspicion that “The Craft Meat Co” vegetarian sausages ranked at #1 and #2 are now sold under the brand name “Pl*nt”, I was genuinely devastated to learn that as of last week, the parent company Sustainable Goods Ltd is going into voluntary administration, meaning this excellent ranking may soon be defunct, along with my Friday night dinner special. Gutted.
46. The best trans-Tasman sporting rivalries
My enjoyment of this ranking was only slightly marred by the author expecting his audience to have a solid grasp of the Antipodean sporting scene. Who is Greg Dowling? What sport do The Kangaroos play? Petanque? Ice hockey? I’m not saying that journalism needs to appeal to the lowest common denominator, but speaking as the lowest common denominator, my kingdom for a little extra context. Otherwise an excellent ranking.
45. The best times and places to eat toast, ranked
This beautiful meditation by “birth adjacent” author Hayden Donnell, is something of a Trojan horse, attempting to smuggle a tribute to the post-partum joy of a free hospital breakfast into a more conventional format. As a ranking, it lacks intellectual credibility. But as a moving tribute to the power of two hot slices, it slaps.
44. Politician’s zoom backgrounds
Love the concept, but could have been improved by a more definitive list. If that meant ranking 113 extra screenshots of featureless zoom backgrounds, comparing the pearlescent lustre of one wall against the jaundiced apricot afterglow of another, I would have been satisfied.
This jingle is going straight to the top of the Saturday work playlist.
42. All the songs in Kiri and Lou
I was torn about this one. On the one hand, it’s an utterly magnificent and truly awe-inspiring feat of journalism, and I can only commend the author for the mammoth effort. On the other hand, what the fuck are Kiri and Lou??? Until reading this ranking I was happy in my ignorance, like Eve before the fall. As someone without kids, I know I’m the wrong target audience. But I find Kiri and Lou to be primally revolting, and I think the kindest thing to do would be to call the large animal vet and put these upsetting creatures out of their misery.
I was dubious going into this piece. How much content can you wring out a shared generational nostalgia? But as soon as I clicked the link and saw the screenshots, something deep and primal was activated in my neurological cortex.
Toot toot! Brilliant concept, flawless execution. No notes.
39. Original pokemon
This is a conceptually brilliant piece. My main gripe is taxonomic. I strongly believe the Pokemon ought to have been ranked in their evolutionary groups. It makes no more sense to list Raichu and Pikachu as individual Pokemon than it does to list Winston Churchill (adult) and Winston Churchill (baby) separately in a list of great British statesmen.
38. Oat milks
Full of creamy, full-fat goodness.
I’ve never been a Mansfield stan, preferring Janet Frame, the true literary powerhouse of Aotearoa. I blame my dislike on high school English and the guy in my creative writing workshop who penned an upsettingly horny short story about making sweet wartime love to this doyenne of New Zealand letters. But this gorgeous list has inspired me to give her work another go.
36, 35 & 34. Non-alcoholic beers, 2020, 2022 & 2024
These three lists, read in tandem, provide a fascinating snapshot of The Spinoff across the years. Bonus points for Toby’s description of one beer as tasting “like the bottom of a plastic bucket” which, upon publication, led to the company in question isolating a bad batch of cans and potentially averting a food safety crisis.
The only issue is that no alcoholic beers from previous rankings were repeated, save for three beers, included in both the 2022 and 2024 rankings, and the top beer in 2020 which was included in the 2022 rankings. For the inevitable 2026 ranking, I think a little consolidation is in order.
33. Nuts
Most rankings are best when they err on the side of public consensus. While nobody can maintain perfect objectivity, I think some effort to acknowledge collective values is important. You can’t just disqualify every barbecue-flavoured chip from a chip ranking because you don’t personally like the flavour.
But there’s always an exception that proves the rule. I can only aspire to the level of controversy this ranking provoked in The Spinoff chat. This ranking goes boldly where meeker authors might fear to tread. It is a courageous, divisive, no-fucks-given approach that dares to elevate the humble walnut, at the expense of the almond, hazelnut and macadamia. Bold and audacious, just like the #1 nut, pistachio.
32. Apples
To me, apples are the most disgusting fruit in the world. I’ve written about my visceral disgust for them elsewhere, so it’s a compliment to the writer that this ranking made it so high. If it were up to me, all apples would be tied for last place.
31. Steve Arnott’s waistcoats in Line of Duty
Yes, this is extremely niche, and yes all the waistcoats look exactly the same. But as a Line of Duty fan, this ranking holds a special, pinstriped place in my heart.
While I admit that trying to parse so many cascading political references depleted a good amount of my admittedly scant brain power, sometimes you don’t have to understand something to know when you’re in the presence of greatness, like a dog staring up at a Rembrandt. The perfect thing to read with a complimentary bliss ball and a packet of gluten-free cheesy pea puffs.
29. Big Brother diary room chairs
I have never watched a single episode of Big Brother, preferring the obviously superior reality television empire, Survivor. But if there’s one thing I can get behind, it’s an ostentatious chair. This ranking gave me an immense amount of joy, despite being totally unfamiliar with the source material.
A brilliant and iconic ranking, ruined only by the tragic fate of Rastus the cat. His wee red neckerchief! The ear holes in his helmet! Extremely upsetting stuff.
27. The top 10 dairy names that have also been locations of interest
Not only does this ranking evoke a heady nostalgia for those early pandemic days, but the concept of ranking dairy names is nothing short of genius. I implore the author to roll up their sleeves and undertake a definitive and authoritative ranking of every dairy name in the entire country. You can have Dingle Dell Dairy and Bush Fairy Dairy for free.
26. All the supermarket hot cross buns
If there’s anything I hate as much as an apple, it’s a hot cross bun. What is a sweet bun, but a disappointing cake, or a piece of bread with bad intentions? Nevertheless, I’m willing to set aside my prejudices long enough to acknowledge that this ranking is a necessary if somewhat distasteful public service.
25. All the characters in the Hairy Maclary universe
This list might have cracked the top 20 if it weren’t for the totally unnecessary inclusion of human characters. Sure, humans are technically animals, but as the author admits “these books are about dogs and cats, not budgie-owning octogenarians and old ladies whose hats blow away.” Otherwise flawless.
From the iconic cover image to the description of Peter as “heaven’s bouncer” to the poignant meditation on the tribulations of having eight older siblings, there is simply nothing in this piece not to like.
23. Email sign-offs
This ranking has the distinction of being the only one to have permanently altered the trajectory of my life. Until I read this ranking, published earlier this year, I was a strict adherent to the email sign-off “best”, believing it to be a friendly, no-frills approach to concluding messages. After I read this ranking, I had a massive crisis of confidence, and have reverted to the letter H, which makes me feel like an aspiring M15 agent.
22. Canned coffee
This ranking gave me vicarious heart palpitations. Although it wasn’t perfectly definitive, due to regional product variability, I admired the strict ranking criteria and the vicious behind-the-scenes infighting.
21. Stadia
Something about this list, and the corporate sponsorship naming rights, is incredibly funny to me. Orangetheory Stadium. Western Bay Finance Stadium. They all sound like settings in a George Saunders short story.
20. Celebrity Treasure Island contestants
I have not and will never watch an episode of Celebrity Treasure Island. Usually, I’m dead against any sort of reality game show with celebrity contestants. A list ranking those contestants is another story entirely. Although I only recognized 5% of the ranked individuals, this piece is much funnier than it has any right to be.
Here we go. Now we’re cooking. I was sad not to see the sheep and dog from Tirau on this excellent list, but I accept that a building and a monument are not taxonomically interchangeable. I was also pleased to read that Waitomo’s Big Apple is expecting a good polish any day now, if only they can find a shirtsleeve large enough.
While I have no love for the game of cricket, you don’t have to understand the intricacies of the Duckworth Lewis rule to appreciate a good uniform. I might have got into spectator sports a lot earlier if I’d known the outfits were such a big deal. My one complaint is that the list runs best to worst, instead of worst to best. But that can be easily remedied, by starting from the bottom and reading up.
17. Canned wine
Canned, canned wine, stay close to me. Usually, I’d only buy a canned wine if I were making a quick and nasty risotto. But it’s the quality of the writing, rather than the subject matter that elevates this cheeky and insouciant piece of collaborative journalism. Bonus points for the description of one of the wines as “smelling like Warehouse Stationery.”
Not all corn fritters are created equal, and while the premise of this ranking is necessarily variable depending on the chip shop in question, this is a stunningly patriotic ranking, which ought to be laminated and given to all new immigrants, along with a Bunnings sausage sizzle and a pair complimentary jandals.
15. Fast food fries
Not only is this an extremely powerful and authoritative ranking, with clearly articulated criteria and a strong ambience, but like the perfect fry, the prose is crisp, fresh and a little bit salty.
14. Mini easter eggs
This is the Toyota Corolla of rankings. It’s reliable, doesn’t draw unnecessary attention to itself, and gets you safely to the correct destination: Cadbury Mini Eggs Milk Chocolate Delights.
13. 30 years of Shortland street
At the risk of having my citizenship revoked, I should probably admit I’ve never seen a single episode of Shortland Street. And yet, I contend that my ignorance only made my enjoyment of this ranking stronger. There’s something inherently funny about condensing a year’s worth of soap opera plot down to a series of taut, 100-word paragraphs, full of helicopter crashes, crystal meth addictions and volcanic eruptions.
12. Vegan cheese
While I’m all for vegetarian alternatives to meat and dairy products, vegan cheese inspires a special kind of gustatory fear. I felt a special kind of schadenfreude while reading Spinoff staffers wade through 30 kinds of vegan camembert and blue cheese, not dissimilar to watching an episode of Fear Factor, or that film where a mountaineer has to saw his own arm off with a pocket knife.
11. Winston Peters vs David Seymour: their 15 most venomous insults, ranked
The S-tier of political rankings. This one has it all. Drama. Linguistic panache. A direct bearing on the future of the nation. We love to see it.
10. NRL mascots
This is what rankings were invented for. 10/10. Now someone do the AFL.
Dare I say that reading this comprehensive and definitive ranking of New Zealand Taskmaster tasks is a lot more fun than actually watching the show?
This ranking satisfied on so many levels. It’s funny. It’s educational. It’s thorough. Like Labour’s 1984 campaign slogan, this ranking will surely Bring New Zealand Together.
7 & 6. Every pudding in the Edmond’s cookbook and Every cold dessert in the Edmond’s cookbook
I can only shake my head in awe at the effort that went into producing these two unequivocally perfect rankings. Not even Mad Champan, eating “two to three” iceblocks a day for over a month, has gone so hard. This ranking has the energy of that one kid who turns up at the science fair, having invented a new source of renewable energy, while everyone else is busy pouring vinegar into their volcano craters. This is a ranking you could give to anyone and they would find some joy in it unless their heart was as dry and withered as a Harlequin pudding.
5. All 54 classic Whittaker’s flavours ranked from worst to best
4. All 142 biscuit flavours in New Zealand ranked from worst to best
3. Every dairy lolly in New Zealand, reviewed and ranked
2. All 123 chip flavours in New Zealand ranked from worst to best
1. All 87 ice blocks in New Zealand ranked from worst to best
At long last, we have arrived at the top five Spinoff rankings of all time.
At first, it seemed a little unfair to award the top five podium places to the same author. I briefly considered spacing them out, to create the illusion of journalistic neutrality. But the idea of removing any of these rankings from their rightful place at the top disgusted my innate sense of justice. Here in the libertarian marketplace of ideas, you have to give credit where credit is due. It would be outrageous to confiscate any of Katie Ledecky’s gold medals because she’s “too good at swimming.” And so the top five places go to the reigning queen of rankings, Mad Chapman, in the 1500m, 800m, 400m, 200m and 100m freestyle.
These are god-tier rankings. They fulfil every need in Maslow’s hierarchy. They are staggeringly thorough. They are profoundly utilitarian (it’s never too late to discover a new favourite chip flavour.) They are democratic (anyone with a supermarket or dairy can snack along.) And most of all, they are funny.
These rankings aren’t without flaws. Upon publication, the chip ranking caused widespread outrage, even attracting the ire of Paula Bennett. And Chapman has since issued a belated correction. But the ranking order isn’t the point here. The best thing about these rankings is their timeless literary appeal. Like the works of Jane Austen and Herman Melville, these rankings will endure in our cultural memory. They’re deliciously curt and have a world-weary prose style, like that of a beleaguered social worker nipping out for a quick fag break. I have ranked the top five in order of my personal preference, but they could easily be tied for first place, depending on the reader’s culinary tastes.
In the words of the iconic format, Mad Chapman is the best ranker in New Zealand.
First published September 9, 2024.
