Alright folks, buckle up because today I decided to actually try that ‘Tell Me Whos Hot Whos Not List’ thing I kept hearing about. Wanted to see if it lived up to the buzz for keeping track of who’s popping off around me – you know, coworkers, friends, maybe even local spots.
The Setup Quest
First thing: finding the darn list itself. Wasn’t exactly obvious. Jumped online, typed in the exact name, scrolled through pages of results that felt mostly unrelated. Got kinda frustrated after ten minutes. Finally spotted a forum post where someone casually mentioned “just look for the simple spreadsheets people share”. Ah-ha! That made more sense than some fancy app. Grabbed a basic one someone had uploaded – just rows and columns on a spreadsheet.
Making It Mine (The Messy Way)
Opened it up and stared. Blank cells stared back. Okay, needed names. Started brainstorming categories:
- Work people (who’s getting promoted? on big projects?)
- Close friends (who’s always got drama? starting cool ventures?)
- Local hangouts (which cafe suddenly has lines? which bar’s dead?)
Jotted names down kinda randomly. Felt messy, like cramming leftovers into the fridge. I ended up with columns like:
- Name/Thing
- Last Noticed Level (High/Medium/Low – totally subjective)
- Recent Gossip/Trend (For the juicy bits)
- Why? Gut Feeling (Cause logic goes out the window sometimes)
Realized I needed a ‘Last Updated’ stamp quick. Forgot it at first, then couldn’t remember if my note about Dave’s promotion was from last week or last month. Added that.
The Actual Tracking (Spoiler: It’s Awkward)
This is where it got… weird. Trying to objectively rate people’s “heat” level felt gross. Assigning a “Low” to a friend who’s just chilling felt mean, even on a private list! I mostly stuck to ‘High’ for stuff buzzing right now – like Sarah suddenly leading the new team project, or that taco truck with the insane new salsa line.
For the gossip/trend column, I forced myself to write one-liners. Examples:
- “Mentioned in CEO meeting re: budget (source: hallway chatter)”
- “Closed early last Tuesday, rumor about health inspection?”
- “Dropped new song on SoundCloud, getting local radio play?”
Tried updating it every Friday morning with coffee. It felt like homework some weeks. Accuracy? Hah! Pure guesswork. Sometimes I’d bump someone to “High” just ’cause I saw ’em twice in one week.
Did It Actually Work? My Take
After a month-ish? Here’s the real tea:
- Kinda useful for surface stuff: Seeing that cafe plummet to “Low” after three weeks of short hours confirmed my suspicion it was struggling.
- Made me pay dumb attention: Because I needed something for the list, I listened harder in chats and scanned my surroundings more. Not always valuable, kinda tiring.
- The “Why? Gut Feeling” saved me: Looking back, those weird hunches (“Seems stressed, avoiding happy hour”) often meant someone WAS laying low or gearing up for something big. Gut had merit!
- Ethical ick factor: Yeah, the core idea never fully sat right. Assigning “hotness” is inherently flawed and messy. Felt a bit icky sometimes.
Overall? It’s a blunt, kinda clumsy tool. Maybe useful for tracking noisy trends for places or public figures, less so for actual people without feeling like a gossip columnist. The spreadsheet structure forced briefness, which I liked. But managing it consistently was the real chore. Won’t ditch it completely, but I’m scaling WAY back to just tracking maybe my top 5 “need to know” things max. Any more than that feels like social surveillance overkill!
