The She's A Beast StrongList of Important Things, 2025

I’ve watched a lot of Mad Men recently. Often with this show and all its historical references, you are meant to chuckle patronizingly at the way the characters routinely, sincerely tell each other that the end of the world is upon them. It’s understandable why they felt that way—seemingly impending nuclear war, regular old ill-advised war, racialized violence, constant bewildering political assassinations. But in the late 2000s when Mad Men aired, we knew the world wasn’t ending in the 1960s, because there we were. Here in the 2020s, I chuckle especially patronizingly. Not just because when I first watched it I was younger than every character on the show, and now I am older than all of them except Sterling and Cooper, but because their 1960s present seems like a lost utopia of regulation (or at least, one that was naive about loophole exploitation) and socioeconomic stability. These sweet 1960s simpletons know nothing of true dystopia, I chuckle to myself, which may be found in the 2020s.

The real point of all these references in Mad Men, of course, was to show that the world pretty much always seems like it’s ending. Entropy means that everything bends toward destruction and collapse. I used to have almost painful curiosity about how various ancient civilizations collapsed: You mean they built this beautiful city and then just vanished? You mean the Library of Alexandria didn’t actually burn down, it just kinda crumbled and faded away? How could anyone let that happen? Couldn’t they see how good they had it? But now, I’m at least open to the idea that I’m actually seeing it for myself. Even when things aren’t ending ending, maybe, they can go in an irredeemably bad direction when a relative few extremely greedy people are allowed to do whatever they want, at the expense of the rest of us, when we either stop caring or are unable to care about each other. That’s enough. (Especially when we disembowel our educational system of liberal arts and history that would allow us to better recognize all the stupid tricks everyone pulls.)[^1]

I think a lot of us have been reevaluating our relationship to the world and ourselves and each other recently. Maybe the best version of society doesn’t register in the historical record, as we currently tend to construct it. It’s powerful to accept that the world is end-able and is ending. It means whatever you choose to do that isn’t “giving up” is done in spite of its global futility, which means it must have local utility. For me, that re-imbues everything with meaning. The only thing that isn’t raging against the dying of the light is giving in. If I’m not giving in, then I must be raging. And rage I shall.

Anyways. This is the She’s A Beast StrongList of Important Things of 2025, where I canvas the thousands of saved links from the last year and pluck out the ones that I haven’t been able to stop thinking about, whose themes will continue to be significant beyond this year. (Here are the lists from 2023 and 2024, if you want to check my work so far.)

There are tons of pieces I read and discarded for this list that preoccupy themselves with analyzing a bad thing, and why specifically it is bad, and what if the bad thing becomes so much more important than we could possibly imagine? This is an easy way to expend 5,000 words, and often an irresponsible one. Many media outlets care only about the first part and never think about the second, which is rude when we have limited time and energy. A lot of media feels out of touch and like it’s hanging on for dear life through FUD-generating engagement bait more than ever before, and it’s exhausting and annoying. So if you’re wondering on why there seem to be few or no pieces on, say, AI, or cosmetic surgery, "thin is in," or wellness influencers, that is why. I am two years in to protecting my soft little brain from these kinds of psychic attacks, and it’s been the best choice I’ve made.

All of these pieces speak to the challenge of being a living, breathing human in the world with other people, how we are acted on and act upon each other and ourselves for better and worse. Impact as a priority is setting, and intention is rising. Take care of yourselves and each other.