The Sunday Digest: Rounding Down

Ah, December. The month of snow (depending on where you are), daylight savings (also…depending on where you are), and holidays (depending on which ones you celebrate). Okay, clearly not all of those things are universal. One thing that is, though? The Year in Review.

Right now, Best Of lists are confirming or inflaming opinions on movies, music and the like, or alerting audiences to new obsessions. Article roundups are bringing second waves of attention to the best writing readers have devoured or missed. News outlets are looking at everything they’ve covered, either to tell us what the world was like before it turned upside down, or to remind us that things were already their own kind of crazy in the early months of this year. 

Of course, that’s been the case in end-of-year media for quite a while. But in 2020, the look-back wave has been more pronounced than usual. That makes sense: everyone needs to process a year we know we can never forget, and mostly wish we could.