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written by Sam Greenspan

I look back at the lists from this site this year that really seemed to “take.”

It’s the last week of December and, therefore, time to pull content out of reflexive thin air via some year-in-review lists.

Of the 150-some lists I posted on 11 Points this year, these were the 11 most popular lists. That’s in terms of straight view counts, which is why the list is skewed toward the earlier part of the year. (And also the part of the year before Digg shrunk from an 800-pound gorilla to an 11-pound lazy helper monkey.)

So here’s what democracy chose on 11 Points this year, in reverse order…

11 | 11 Extraordinarily Clever Simpsons Tattoos (4/19/10)

I enjoy researching the tattoo lists to a point — eventually my eyes went blurry from so many people tattooing Bart in a mooning position with their belly button as his anus.

Since I did this list back in April, the great Simpsons tattoo to the right surfaced online. Definitely would’ve made the list (and probably bumped Marc Jacobs out).

10 | 11 Old School WWF Wrestlers With the Worst Side Jobs (3/23/10)

I love that this was one of the 11 most popular since I almost didn’t do it — I didn’t think it would have enough appeal. Proving, as usual, I have no idea of what is or isn’t going to work on this website.

9 | 11 Best Nude Moments in Old School Nintendo Games (1/8/10)

I loved making this list, mostly because I find 8-bit nudity to be a hilarious enterprise. I remember back when I was in 8th grade or so (1993-ish) and a friend at school told me he’d downloaded a few photos of naked ladies with his modem. “Why would you want to get naked pictures on the computer?” I remember asking, “They’re probably fake.”

8 | 11 Artists Who Wouldn’t Give Weird Al Permission For a Parody (9/8/10)

I know a bunch of people tweeted this list to Weird Al, but, as far as I can tell, it didn’t make his radar. Which is probably for the best — I researched the hell out of it, but I assume a decent portion was just traditional Internet lore and hearsay. I guess I’m still miles away from my dream of having a meeting with Weird Al where I can pitch song ideas, including a Lady Gaga parody called Pizza Face, a Black Eyed Peas parody called I Gotta Pizza, and a Miley Cyrus parody called Pizza in the U.S.A. Oh, and a concept album that will be entirely pizza-related Bon Jovi parodies called Bon Anchovy.

7 | 11 Little-Known Grammatical Errors That Will Shock and Horrify You (2/3/10)

Not only was this the 7th most popular list of the year, it’s also the list that got me the second-most hate mail of the year.

For the third year in a row, 11 Things the Bible Bans, But You Do Anyway easily took the top prize for generating the most hate mail. My 11 Worst Mario Games, In Order got bumped down from its usual spot as second to third. Meaning to me that, in order, people get angriest about the Bible, then grammar, then video games.

6 | 11 Amazing Fake Harry Potter Books Written In China (4/28/10)

Definitely my favorite list of the year. Researching bootleg Harry Potter rip-offs from China was my most enjoyable absurd project of the year. (My least-favorite research of the year? 11 Totally Innocent Magazines That Are Actually Larry Flynt Publications from July. Took like 15 hours, didn’t turn out as interesting as I thought, and wasn’t a very appealing or marketable subject to start with.)

5 | 11 Ridiculous Photos Of Creative Smuggling Attempts Gone Wrong (10/25/10)

This list really shot up the chart — most of the ones on this list are from the first half of the year because they’ve had a chance for all the long tail traffic. Apparently there’s a much quicker viral appeal from photos of people stuffed into car seats.

4 | 11 Most Scandalous Saved by the Bell Revelations in Screech’s Autobiography (1/25/10)

This one blew up mainly because I remain the first and only person to have ever read Dustin Diamond’s book. This site is literally the only place to learn what happened in the book. (Well, this site and the 50 or so that plagiarized the list. You can get the information from them too. But please don’t.)

3 | 11 Brilliant Arrested Development Shout Outs To Its Actors’ Past Roles (4/15/10)

It took me almost two years to write an Arrested Development list because I could never settle on the perfect subject… and I wanted to do right by the show. I finally arrived at this idea and was happy to see that it connected with so many people. If only we’d all had Nielsen boxes back in the day.

2 | 11 Most Painfully Obvious Newspaper Articles Ever (1/6/10)

I was finishing up a two-week cross country road trip when I banged this list out as quickly as possible from a hotel room in El Paso in between eating 3,000-calorie meals and nightly binge drinking. And it was number two for the year. Proving, yet again, I have no idea of what is or isn’t going to work on this website.

1 | 11 Predictions About 2010 That The Simpsons Got Right (8/2/10)

The biggest list of the year came from pulling the highlights from the Lisa’s Wedding episode of The Simpsons — which was set in the “future” of August 2010. Weirdly, its companion list two days later, 11 Predictions About 2010 That The Simpsons Got Wrong, only finished 19th for the year. I’m not sure why someone would read one and not the other. Maybe people just want to BELIEVE; it’s the same reason that everyone bought the “Homer Is a Dope” t-shirt.