Weekly Filet Awards 2024

The best of the best of the year, in the most unglamorous yet heartfelt ceremony of the year.

David Bauer

27 Dec 2024 — 8 min read

This is David, your personal curator of the best of the web. You're reading the Weekly Filet, the newsletter for curious minds who love when something makes them go «Huh, I never thought of it this way!».

We're rounding off this year with a first: the Weekly Filet Awards to remind ourselves of the outstanding work published this year.

We have 11 categories, from Attention Grab of The Year to History Lesson Not Learnt of The Year. Ready? Go.

Most Charming Rabbit Hole Invitation of The Year

Such a wonderful talk about appreciating the small things, finding beauty and wonder in unexpected places. «I highly encourage you to go down all the rabbit holes. […] I just want us to appreciate everything endlessly.» (It starts a bit slow and confusing, but trust me, it’s so worth it.)

Attention Grab of The Year

Part of a series the NYT launched this year, which invites – well, rather: challenges – you to look at art for 10 minutes straight. I like how the subtle hints help you stay focused and immerse yourself rather than simply obsess over the passage of time.

Collector of Secrets of The Year

Frank Warren had a boring job, and suddenly, an idea. He addressed 3000 postcards to himself and started handing them out to strangers, with a simple message: «Hi, I’m Frank. And I collect secrets.» Soon enough, the secrets started coming to his mailbox. And they never stopped. Today, Frank’s collection has grown to more than a million. What a great story.

History Lesson Not Learnt of The Year

It was a chilling read back in March, it's even more so after Trump's re-election. Zooming all the way into the year 1932, the story of «how a country with a functional, if flawed, democratic machinery handed absolute power over to someone who could never claim a majority in an actual election and whom the entire conservative political class regarded as a chaotic clown with a violent following.»

Unified Theory of The Year

You’re born with a finite number of fucks to give. So your challenge in life is to give a fuck about the right things, and make sure you never run out of fucks to give. The unified theory of fucks comes with a life hack: the infinite fucks loop, if you will.

Nature-Inspired User Manual of The Year

I love how applying the right metaphor adds an entire new layer to a not-so-new take: The internet has become too centralised, too dominated by very few giant players. «When we simplify complex systems, we destroy them, and the devastating consequences sometimes aren’t obvious until it’s too late.» This wonderful essay uses nature to chart path forward to a reinvigorated, more resilient internet.

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Kathryn Schulz Essay of The Year (because she's in a league of her own)

Kathryn Schulz will get me interested in any topic, no exceptions. Here it's comparative thanatology – the study of how different species respond to death. Of course, this turns out to be an extremely fascinating field of study – sometimes «at the intersection of love, death, and dinner», as Schulz writes. What’s not to love!

Runner-up: The Secrets of Suspense

Mind-Blowing Essay That Might or Might Not Look Silly in a Few Years of The Year

Dario Amodei, the founder of Anthropic, lays out his vision of what a world with powerful AI might look like if everything goes right. I like how clearly he describes what the best-case scenario would look like. It makes everything tangible – and disputable. Here’s one key takeaway: «After powerful AI is developed, we will in a few years make all the progress in biology and medicine that we would have made in the whole 21st century.»

Witnesses of The Year

The most horrifying thing I read all year. An eyewitness report from two doctors who return from Gaza with images and smells they won’t be able to forget, and an appeal: «We must decide, once and for all: are we for or against murdering children?» ⚠️ Contains images and descriptions that are hard to stomach – which is kind of the point of the whole story, but be warned and maybe pass on this one if you don’t feel comfortable exposing yourself to it.

👨‍⚕️ We Volunteered at a Gaza Hospital. What We Saw Was Unspeakable.

Nerdy Deep Dive of The Year

I love watching people who are so passionate about a very particular thing that you can’t help but get excited about it yourself. Case in point: This 25-minute presentation by designer Marcin Wichary about pixel fonts. It’s not just super fascinating – I dare you to find me a presentation with nicer animations.

Happy Ending of The Year

«If people are going to say nice things about me, I’d rather hear it» – well, you have a point there. When you know you’re going to die soon, why not gather with all your loved ones while you’re still there? And make it a celebration of life instead of the mourning of death?

Go deeper

The Weekly Filet archive now holds 2622 manually curated gems, some of the best things on the web since 2011. You can search the archive, click for a random gem or browse my collections.

That's it for this year. Thanks you for following along. I wish you a calm and happy end of the year, and look forward to seeing you again in 2025.

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— David