We calculated out The People’s Rankings for the Tournament of the Best. If you don’t know what that means, here it is. We ran every vote through this process:
- Take the champion (Belly Laughs) and assign it a score of 100.
- For everything which lost to Belly Laughs, calculate its score using ‘Score = 100 – M,’ where M is the margin of defeat, in percentage points.
- For everything which lost to a thing which lost to Belly Laughs, calculate its score using ‘Score = Opponent’s Score – M/Opponent’s Score.’ Continue this for all the things until everything has a score.
The idea is that this tells us how everything stacks up, adjusting for difficulty of path (things that ran into Belly Laughs early don’t get enough credit, until we do this). Its primary weakness is that it only measures binary choices, which makes consensus probably overvalued relative to enthusiasm. But, given the votes were binary themselves, it’s the best we can offer.
Anyway, here you go. In order, the Tournament of the Best competitors, from best to worst (the score is in parentheses):
1. Belly Laughs (100.0)
2. Crisp Fall Days (84.4)
T-3. Songs You Love (81.6)
T-3. The First Day of Spring (81.6)
5. Sunsets (78.3)
6. A Day Off (78.2)
7. Puppies (76.7)
8. College Football (70.1)
9. Hugs (69.6)
10. The Barking Crow (68.9)
11. Going Somewhere New (68.1)
12. The Stars (66.1)
13. Summer Evenings (65.5)
14. Tom Hanks (64.7)
15. The Roar of the Crowd (64.6)
16. Pizza (63.8)
17. Great Movies, in Theatre (61.27)
18. The Mountains (61.25)
19. Clean Sheets (60.8)
20. Harriet Tubman (60.5)
21. The First Snowfall (57.3)
22. The Beach (56.5)
23. Cheese (56.3)
24. Hot Showers (56.1)
25. Cookies (55.1)
26. The Smell of Coffee (54.3)
27. The Olympics (54.1)
28. The Moon (52.8)
29. Walks (51.2)
30. Weddings (51.1)
31. Grandmas (48.5)
32. Sunrises (47.5)
33. Ice Cream (46.3)
34. A Good Day at Work (44.7)
35. Open Windows (44.5)
36. Board Games (43.84)
37. Coming Home (43.77)
38. Card Games (43.1)
39. The Smell of the Ocean (42.7)
40. Dr. Anthony Fauci (42.6)
41. Bike Rides (42.2)
42. Kindness from a Stranger (41.7)
43. City Skylines (40.2)
44. Chocolate (39.5)
45. Netflix (38.8)
46. Trains (37.8)
47. Dinosaurs (37.1)
48. Bridges (36.5)
49. Fireplaces (36.0)
50. A Good Book (35.0)
51. Finishing a Puzzle (31.9)
52. Flowers (31.6)
53. Dolphins (30.6)
54. Grandpas (26.9)
55. Lin-Manuel Miranda (24.6)
56. Wyoming’s License Plate (24.1)
57. Good Parking Spots (21.2)
58. A Cat’s Purr (21.0)
59. French Fries (19.6)
60. Soft Carpeting (17.6)
61. Swingsets (17.0)
62. Water Balloon Fights (9.8)
63. Ponies (8.6)
64. Dollhouses (6.0)
