Ski Resorts 'Tier Lists' are Taking Over the Internet

Ranking things is something everyone loves to do, whether it's on Yelp, Google reviews, travel sites, or on polls shared to social media (like here at POWDER ).

Even hipsters enjoy arranging records in the corner of their house to put the best ones in view of their guests. This time, the hotly-debated internet debate stems from r/skiing , where Reddit users are ranking their favorite ski resorts and ski areas.

The trend has evolved with some users putting their own spin on the ranking system. The tier list below uses the standard S-F categories (with S being the highest), but there's something a bit different going on. See if you can figure it out.

Undisputed Ski Area Tier List
by u/Snlxdd in skiing

If you couldn't figure it out from the post or the Reddit comments below it, this tier list is organized quite literally by the first letter of each resort. Aspen Snowmass is split between "S tier" and "A tier", and Sugarloaf would go in the "S tier", and so on and so forth.

Instead of taking the time to review the merits of each resort (that would take a long time. How are we supposed to choose between soulful old chairs and heated seats? Or between a multitude of cliffs with crowds, or untracked but somewhat boring terrain?) people have resorted to using tier lists as a meme format.

Like this tier list, for example. Kirkwood at the bottom? Diamond Peak at the top? Someone is laughing, somewhere. See below.

My tierlist for California ski resorts
by u/bmetz16 in skiing

Commonly, this is the case, like in the plentiful "my resort is S tier, everyone else's is D tier" as seen below.

The REAL Best Ski Tier List for North America
by u/loafydood in skiing

This could really be applied to anything. I am sure that quite soon we will see a tier list ranking ski widths with some extremely radical opinions.

At any rate, since the existing tier lists we reviewed were jokes, I offer up a very thoughtful one. See my tier list of the best and worst resort logos below.

Listen, I could have made a meme tier list ranking resorts, but we all know what that would look like. Jokes aside, this was a fun exercise in evaluating design.

Ranking things is a creative way to decide how you feel about a list of locations, places, things, or people without putting them in boxes of "good" or "bad."

Let us know how your tier lists go, or send us some while you're at it. It's more fun than it looks.

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