The Top 1 Listicle You'll Read This Year
Emily Writes Wrapped: The Top 10 EWW posts in 2025
Gidday, Josh here! You might have noticed there was no Friday Night Chats this week. Emily is fine, but also catastrophically munted from... everything? Christmas: it's the most exhausting time of the year. I fell asleep twice on Boxing Day, possibly due to my absolutely absurd decision to take the family shopping on Boxing Day. What the hell was I thinking?
Feel free to skip to the comments if you read this already in your email!
A reintroduction in case you're wondering, understandably, "who the hell is this guy?" I am Josh, and I work with Emily on tech stuff and editorial and whatever else needs doing around the place since she made the move from Substack. I write for David Farrier's Webworm and even other outlets sometimes, I have an art shop/blog for all my other stuff, and I've brought my Bad Newsletter over to EWW as well.
Emily has asked me to put a Top 10 listicle of all the work she's published this year and honestly it is hard to pick just 10. I'm not just saying this because we're colleagues or because there are 186 posts this year (!!!) to pick from - her work ethic blows my mind. So in no particular order:
#10: All the stuff this community did this year
I'm leading with The Year in Revolt, which is a breakdown of all the things the Emily Writes community achieved this year. The highlight for me is the Palestine mutual aid fund, which has distributed over $100,000 directly to Palestinian families in need. The fund isn't a charity and Emily doesn't take a cut - it's direct support. This is incredible mahi and if you have a paid subscription here, know that your support is what makes this stuff possible.
Donate to the Aotearoa 2 Gaza Mutual Aid fund here.
Emily Writes
#9: All the ways the government is screwing up the new curriculum
This was one of the most-read posts this year - the new curriculum rollout has been bungled in about as many ways as it's possible to bungle something, and parents and teachers are desperate to know what the hell is going on.
Emily Writes
#8: The 100+ other things the Chaos Coalition has screwed up, torched, or ruined this year
There have been a lot of big strikes this year for very good reasons. 2026 is an election year, and for all that Labour are being their irrevocably milquetoast do-nothing zero-aspiration selves, we desperately need to kick this mob out. Organising for the election is going to be a big focus for Emily Writes Weekly next year!
Emily Writes
#7: This vital post about what it's actually like when a kid takes puberty blockers
It has not been a good year for trans folks. Hyper-vocal ultra-online TERFs with nothing in their lives but the ability to scream and scream and scream are proving to be the ultimate useful idiots for venal politicians looking for scapegoats and distractions for their fascist or ultra-neoliberal agendas. And they're dragging a lot of normal people into the mire with them. This post defuses all the hype: puberty blockers are just medicine! They're often life-saving! If you don't need them you can stop taking them! And they're a private decision that can be made with informed consent between patients and doctors like all medicine should be!
Thanks to a judicial review, we've won a stay of execution on our terrible, needless puberty blocker (for trans kids only!) ban we're to make this medicine available to trans kids and their families again, we're going to need to clear out the Chaos Coalition.
Emily Writes
#6: The bizarre case of collective amnesia about what really happened during Covid
Somehow we've allowed our memory of what actually happened during Covid (overwhelming support for lockdowns and Government measures that saved tens of thousands of lives) get overridden by LinkedIn lunatics and columnists who were big mad that the only thing that gave their lives meaning - subjecting other people to their deeply boring in–person presence - went away for a bit. This post is the much-needed corrective.
Emily Writes
#5: Friday Night Chats
Want to know the most-opened emails on Emily Writes Weekly? Friday Night Chats, by a big margin. This email goes out to paid members each week and the comments are always a good time. So here's, somehow, the most-opened email of the year:
Emily Writes
#4: Leaving Substack
Substack have provided a platform for countless writers to make a living. And by being deliberately unfussy about who they monetise (and make money from), Substack is also a lifeline for Nazis, professional misinformation merchants, and grifters of all kinds. Without Substack, it's unlikely that the fantastically untalented Bari Weiss - a grievance grifter whose only other talent is tongue-polishing the boots of the powerful - would ever have founded the ironically-titled "Free Press" or been elevated to CEO of CBS, where she spiked a 60 Minutes segment on the US's unlawful deportations to an inhuman El Salvadorian prison camp. Sadly, Substack is a net negative for the world, and Emily risked her income to leave it. It was brave and the best thing you can do to reward her for it is take out a paid subscription.
Emily Writes
#3: When we pulled together for a tent drive that raised $158,000 in 10 days
In addition to the mutual aid fund, we got together with other writers and creators and in solidarity for Palestine and raised more than $150k for tents for displaced Palestinian families.
While this was an incredible effort it's important to note that the need in Gaza and the West Bank is ongoing and desperate. Getting the New Zealand government to improve its inhuman, harmful stance on Palestine needs to be a priority in 2026.
Emily Writes
#2: Easily the most controversial post of 2025
Because irony is the ruling force of the universe, this email about how good it is to actually talk to people on phones like in the olden days is the number one opened email from Emily Writes Weekly this year (that was not a Friday Night Chats.) Like so many things online, it was only controversial because it's true. Talking on the phone is aeons better than staring into the abyss of the phone screen pecking out a misconstruable message on that dicky little keyboard. It sucks! Why do we even do it? Bring back phone conversations for God's sake.
Emily Writes
#1: Tarzan
I know, I know - this came out in 2016, the year everything went comprehensively to shit. We are almost at the ten year anniversary of this post! But I am counting this wine-induced paen of bisexual longing as one of 2025's posts because this was the year we finally got all of Emily's writing on one website, and because this banger post - ultra-viral at the time - still drives mad traffic to this day. In fact, if you've been reading Emily this whole time, there's a pretty good chance this post is what brought you here.
And like The V. sweet mother Mary the V I am telling you. The v is worth $15. The V is worth so much I wanted to see the movie again straight afterward.
I reckon this post needs a remastered rerelease or a dramatic reading version or a watch party or something for when the tenth anniversary rolls around in July 2026.
Emily Writes
Do you have a favourite post from this year? Does any discourse spring to mind? Should listicles be banned? Let us know what you think in the comments.
Finally, a few words from Emily: Thank you so much for this Josh! I am gonna be real with you, I have done very little the last few days except watch and rewatch Heated Rivalry. It is so funny to see the Tarzan post again because I am once again ferally horny (this time it's a double V). So, the more things change, the more they say the same....
But I am also horny in my heart, not just for Shane and Ilya's epic love, but my love for all of you. Without you, I don't know where I'd be. Thanks for parenting with me, for going through this really tough year with me, for helping others, for being generous and kind, and for trying to find the joy. Without you, I couldn't have hired Josh either, and he's a joy to work with. I couldn't have commissioned the wonderful Helen Gilby, and other writers. I couldn't have brought Dr Jehad Malaka's words to the world from a tent in Gaza. Getting to know Jehad and his lovely wife, Yasmine, and their beautiful children has been an honour. Becoming friends with many Palestinians and being able to support them thanks to you - to survive - is a privilege I'll never be able to repay. Thank you.
I have high hopes for 2026. I'm bringing "I'm coming to the cottage" (iykyk) energy into the New Year. Get in, pals, we're gonna be brave, we're gonna pursue joy wherever we can find it, we're going to be honest with ourselves and be vulnerable with each other. I believe in you! And us! And this community.
Thanks for making all my dreams come true. Emily x
