Can We Stop Ranking Things, Please?

I’m the type of person who would jump off a bridge because all of my friends were doing it. OK, fine, maybe not literally, but I’d do just about anything for them. That includes, but is not limited to, answering a midnight text because they’re crashing out over a first date, picking them up from the airport, and even downloading an app because they said so. I’ve downloaded funky filter apps because my bestie said it was cool (yes, VSCO is still on my iPhone in the year 2026). I’ve downloaded social media apps that never really took off because my friends were obsessed (anyone remember House Party?). And most recently, I’ve hopped on the Beli and Letterboxd bandwagons because all of my friends were doing it.

I downloaded both because I love my friends, and so many of them said I just had to make an account. For those who aren’t constantly glued to their phone or who haven’t succumbed to peer pressure quite yet, the Beli App is a social platform that lets you rank and review restaurants. You can tag the friends you dined with, add photos of your favorite dishes, and then you’re given a series of “this or that” style prompts that will score each dining spot out of 10 according to your preferences and then pin your favorites to your profile.

Over 75 million global restaurant reviews have been shared on the app, and 80% of the users are under 35 years old. It’s almost as if ranking your favorite restaurants is the Gen Z equivalent of a MySpace top 8, though way less petty and personal. Sure, it’s a great resource for recommendations (each restaurant you search comes with an accompanying estimated score for you based on your previous entries), but I’m over the pressure of scoring where I’ve eaten mere moments after the check has hit the table. I’d rather my entire life not function off an algorithm.

Ranking your favorite restaurants is the Gen Z equivalent of a MySpace top 8, though way less petty and personal.

I have the same attitude toward Letterboxd, a review log app for movies. I can admit that the platform has given us some great memes, thanks to celebs like Ayo Edebiri, who used the app candidly before deleting her account in September 2025.

“this movie is great but I was really shocked by how ugly Yoga was sorry if that pisses anybody off but I had only seen baby Yoda and adult Yoda is f*cking busted,” she wrote on a 4.5-star review from 2023 of the Empire Strikes Back installment of the Star Wars franchise.

Charli xcx also has an account where she shares her own reviews, including one for Challengers that says: “was so amped after watching this i ended up going out til 5am with Harrison and then was super hungover for the met [gala]. worth it though.”

Now, if I could exclusively use the app for my silly little thoughts about films (aka when I said “second most important hat in cinematic history right after indiana jones’” about Paddington), that would be fine. But it’s those darn stars that simply stump me. Once you log a movie, the first step is ranking it out of five stars, and the gray star icons almost stare at you longingly until you light them up in a score. But the thing is, my brain simply doesn’t work in such a framework.

For example, I’ve given Disney Channel Original Movies the same number of stars as Goodfellas. I’ve ranked movies inspired by One Direction fan fiction just as high as Academy Award best picture nominees. I cannot be trusted to use a scoring system as a viable resource when I like things based solely off vibes. Was the weather a crisp 68 degrees when I left the theater? Was the popcorn salted just the way I like it, and did the soda machine have ginger lime Diet Coke that day? If so, it was the best movie ever — at least in that moment.

And while it’s fun to see the chaotic lineup of movies my bestie logs on a rainy Saturday — The Odyssey and My Big Fat Greek Wedding 2 as a double feature because she contains multitudes — I’m tired! I don’t like ranking all aspects of my life and thinking about the things I do for fun algorithmically. I also have hardcore recency bias, so whatever I’ve experienced last that wasn’t a plate of inedible goop or a totally unwatchable film is my absolute favorite until I do it all again.

Truly, my favorite movie is whichever one I watch horizontally under a fluffy blanket on my couch with the perfect lineup of sweet and salty snacks to alternate between. My favorite restaurant is the last one I went to with low overhead lighting where my friend shared a good piece of gossip from her last date and didn’t give me food poisoning. Why must we be connected by grading our experiences right after we experience them? Being able to experience anything at all is worthy of two thumbs up, five stars, and a 10/10 ranking anyway. And if you really must rank and review everything you’ve watched or had to eat lately, you can always just do it the old-fashioned way — by recommending what to watch or what restaurant to visit in a face-to-face conversation with your friends. Remember those?