Favorites from 2017
Jan 07 2018
With the end of 2017 came a whole lot of retrospective “best of” articles for the year (and here comes yet another one). While there were quite a few quality lists, two of them stood out to me.
The first was Patrick Willems’ “MY TOP 50 OF 2017” video. I enjoyed Patrick’s choice not to focus on any one medium and how he didn’t try to put his picks in any sort of order (this isn’t exceptionally original, but I enjoyed his take on the format). Second was FiveThirtyEight’s “Damn, We Wish We’d Done These 11 Stories.” For this piece, I appreciated how the FiveThirtyEight team were open with their admiration and jealousy for the work of their peers.
These pieces have in turn inspired me to look back on my own favorite things from 2017. What came about was a mix of my favorite movies, videos, music, TV, and articles. I admire all of them and more than a few of them have made me think “damn, I wish I had made that.” Putting the list together was a nice walk through the year and it has sparked my excitement to read, watch, and (hopefully) make great content in the year to come. To slightly rephrase FiveThirtyEight, hopefully my jealousy will lead to discovery and inspiration.
Without further ado, in no particular order, my top 50 for 2017 -
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The Little of Visualisation Design
Article series from Andy Kirk
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Album by Lucy Dacus
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The Unlikley Odds of Making It Big
Article by The Pudding · This was my introduction to the awesome work from The Pudding. The team over there are writing great pieces with great visualizations. There's a reason this isn't the only piece from them on this list.
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Film
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TV series
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Podcast from Slate
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Black Panther Teaser and Theatrical Trailers
Videos from Marvel · These trailers have made me so excited for Black Panther. Marvel seems to know what they're doing. I loved the minimal but effective use of Run The Jewels.
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Film
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Video from CGP Grey
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TV series
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Good, Evil, Ugly, Beautiful: Help Us Make a 'Game of Thrones' Chart
Article from the New York Times
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Video series from First We Feast
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Film
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Analyzing the Gender Representation of 34,476 Comic Book Characters
Article from The Pudding
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Video series from Brett Novak · Brett has been putting out awesome videos for years and this year was no exception. To best sum up the series, check out the 100th episode video.
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TV series
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Video from the NHL
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We asked 8 Senate Republicans to explain what their health bill is trying to do
Article from Vox · This was one of many pieces that Vox put out in this style. They were all fascinating and generally not in the most encouraging way.
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Video series from Vox · Carlos's series has been a very interesting and necessary critique of the media, especially given the events and coverage of the year.
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Why underdogs do better in hockey than basketball
Video from Vox
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Lecture from Alberto Cairo
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How far is too far? An analysis of driving times to abortion clinics in the US
Article from The Pudding
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Film
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Single from San Fermin
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Book from Trevor Noah · I would highly recommend listening to the audiobook for this with Trevor reading it himself. It ends up being Trevor just sharing his own life story.
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Article from Polytrope
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Film · Watch this with the best sound system you can find.
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Here's every total solar eclipse happening in your lifetime. Is this year your best chance?
Article from the Washington Post
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TV series
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"Kevin Durant, Debate This" Ad
Video from Nike
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Video series from John Green and Chris Waters
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You Draw It: What Got Better or Worse During Obama's Presidency
Article from the New York Times
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Article from Nathan Yau
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TV series · The crew over at 30 Rock churned out gem after gem in 2017. Examples include "Pepsi Commercial", "Guy Who Bought A Boat", "Welcome Video", "Papyrus", "Meet Cute", and all of Pete Davidson's stuff.
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Twitter account
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Why the Republican Party wins when robots take your job
Article from The Pudding
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Book from Joe Biden
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La La Land Mia & Sebastian's Theme Guitar Cover
Video from AcousticTrench · This was one of the most calming videos I watched this year. The cute dog definitely helped.
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YouTube channel
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Film
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Fact-Checking President Trump Through His First 100 Days
Article from the New York Times
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Album from Gregory Alan Isakov · I know this didn't technically come out in 2017, but this was for sure my album of the year.
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Video series from Andrew Rea
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Film · I know it's now kind of a faux pas to like this movie (I liked Moonlight also), but I couldn't help it. I admit it lacked originality in the story side, but I don't think anyone can deny it's style and production value, which is 100% what did it for me.
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Article from the Washington Post · With the continued gun violence in 2017, there was (unfortunately) a lot of stellar coverage to highlight the violence, this being one of the best. See also this piece from Axios.
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Why You Shouldn't Be An Artist
Video from Simon Cade
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YouTube channel · Max made some great content in 2017, including (but not limited to) "What Makes Us American", "From Dream to Reality", and "DICKS" (don't worry, that last one is SFW).
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Album from Logic
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YouTube channel