Were you already writing blog posts in numbered list form? Here are twenty-three reasons why you're a genius!
23. You can count!
22. You can even count backwards!
21. All the cool kids are doing it.
20. Numbered lists are pithy and quotable. Or at least, David Letterman's numbered lists are pithy and quotable. The pith is probably from the numbers.
19. You learned the HTML tag to make a numbered list. You'd better put that on your resume.
18. If you put things in Top Twenty form it makes it sound like you actually can think of more than twenty things. And nobody will notice that #18 is actually #4 reworded so you end up with a nice, round number.
17. Many people are afraid of math. If you use enough numbers, maybe they will think you are smart.
16. Having lots of line breaks between list items will make your post look a lot longer. This will make you feel more accomplished and ward off the demons of self-loathing ever so slightly longer.
15. Not having to write complete sentences. This saves time and bandwidth.
14. The list form is uncreative, boring, and formulaic. You two have so much in common.
13. You originally wrote the post in Word. Damn you, Autoformat!
12. Your readers have very short attention spans. If any idea lasts longer than a bullet point, you'll lose your audience.
11. You have a very short attention span. If anything last longer than, eh, screw it.
10. The list form is easy. Everybody's done a blog post in list form. See #14.
9. Cutting and pasting is fun—but cutting, pasting, and renumbering is even more fun!
8. The numbers are necessary. How else would somebody know what order to read the post in?
7, Paragraph structure is hard. Building a cogent argument is even harder. Lists are easy. See #10.
6. Let's face it. Your article sucks. If you can count backwards, people will know its getting close to the end. If you number it backwards, you might even trick them in to believing it will get better at the end.
5. List form obviates the need to write tricky transitions between your thoughts or to string them together in an organized fashion.
4. "Top Twenty Reasons" form will give your readers the impression that you have surveyed the entire panopoly of possible reasons and concluded that these, of the thousands you have surveyed are the most worthy of their attention. They won't realize that you could only come up with nineteen reasons so you had to reword #3 to get a round number.
3. There is something aesthetically pleasing about lists. Once in a while, you like to kick back, sit in a comfortable chair, and review the grocery lists for the past three years. Ah, lists.
2. You have seventeen reasons for something! None of them individually is worth much. Even taken together, they're pretty flimsy. But when they're numbered....
1. When you get to one, people will know its important. Since you're adding emphasis through unnecessary forms, you should probably also put it in bold and maybe use a few blink tags. If you don't use a list form, it will just be any old reason and will have to be considered on its merits. But if heads a numbered list, then it's the best reason
0. Oh. Also, you can have your list stop at zero or even at negative one. That would be really clever and nobody has ever thought of that before. It would really suck, though, if it were anticlimactic.