Keeping with LoCO’s commitment to document every goddamn time something related to Humboldt ends up on a published list virtually anywhere, here we are again. We were pumped to log on to Facebook this morning and see a new listicle being passed around praising our li’l Arcata! Yay, us!

It gets better. The authoritative article in question — published March 3 by some website called CitiesJournal — is titled “Top 11 Small Cities in California.” And guess who’s numero uno? You’re right! A-town, baby. We win! You like that, No. 2-ranked Dunsmuir? Maybe you can cry on No. 3-ranked Grover Beach’s shoulder, loser. Sweet victory.

Arcata is truly a city on the rise. Readers might recall that LoCO featured a similar much-shared small city listing article in January that also featured Arcata. In that article — “Top 15 Small Cities in California,” published by CityDescribed — Arcata ranked a respectable No. 15. Wow. To jump 14 arbitrary places in just two months is quite a feat, you’ll all agree.

What changed in Arcata? Well, let’s compare the two articles. First the opening to the January CityDescribed article, which ranked Arcata California’s No. 15 best small city:

Arcata is home to Humboldt State University; the college’s hilly, laid-back campus is technically part of California State University, but HSU feels like its own, mellow universe, and so does Arcata. It’s the rare college town that’s also very safe, family-friendly and wholesome…

Sounds like a great place, no? How could Arcata improve? Now let’s look at the opening to the more recent CitiesJournal article which ranked Arcata California’s No. 1 best small city.

Arcata is home to Humboldt State University; the college’s hilly, laid-back campus is technically part of California State University, but HSU feels like its own, mellow universe, and so does Arcata. It’s the rare college town that’s also very safe, family-friendly and wholesome…

Sunofabitch.

Yes, the entirety of the “new” writeup on Arcata is the same as the old one. And, yes, the remainder of the new list contains the same cities, writeups and photos as the previous one, but oddly in reverse order with a few cities omitted.

Here are the the two lists side by side:

CityDescribedCitiesJournal
1. Healdsberg 1. Arcata
2. Ojai 2. Dunsmuir
3. Malibu 3. Grover Beach
4. St. Helena 4. Sonoma
5. Los Alamitos 5. Avalon
6. Sausalito 6. El Segundo
7. Motague 7. Nevada City
8. Exeter 8. Exeter
9. Nevada City 9. Montague
10. El Segundo 10. Sausalito
11. Avalon 11. Los Alamitos
12. Sonoma -
13. Grover Beach -
14. Dunsmuir -
15. Arcata -

We’re not sure what the content-sharing relationship is between CitiesJournal and CityDescribed, but clicking around both sites reveals numerous duplicate articles. Is repackaging highly sharable feel-good articles a sin? Meh. That’s up to you, but maybe take a sec to be suspicious before you share CitiesYay’s upcoming “Top 13 Small Cities in California” article.

Or don’t. It probably doesn’t matter.

Conclusion (again): We all love lists. Lists are dumb.

PREVIOUSLY: Recent Humboldt Rankings For List Lovers