The 10 Most Popular Articles of the Year

It’s been quite a year.

In 2025, we published 187 articles, and generated more than 25 million views here at The Honest Broker. Along the way, we launched a new video interview series, hosted by Jared Henderson. (Our motto is: Smart conversations with smart people.) And we’ve also set up shop on YouTube, as well as the leading podcasting platforms.

We continue to attract new readers. Total subscribers grew to 271,525—up more than 35% in the last twelve months. But we’re also reaching a new audience for our videos and podcasts.

Some things haven’t changed here. We still operate as a community, and not a media outlet. We have open forums and engage in smart, civil dialogue in the comments—which are often the best part of the article.

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There were many highlights to 2025—most notably the posts linked below. Here (in reverse order) are the ten most popular articles from the last 12 months.

10. The World Was Flat. Now It’s Flattened

Every year, I publish a “state of the culture” overview—around the same time the President gives a “State of the Union” address. This is usually one of my most widely read articles.

This year I looked at the flattening of our web-driven lives. Too many of us have become ensnared by digital platforms that are becoming more authoritarian and sterile with each passing month.

I shared this chart, which captures the bunker mentality now dominating the web.

9. Is the Bubble Bursting?

I initially published this article behind a paywall in August, but later made it available to everybody. I made a number of predictions here, and they all seem to be coming true.

8. Substack Has Changed in the Last 30 Days

This was the year that everybody showed up at Substack. Magazines like The New Yorker and Billboard joined the platform. Political candidates of all stripes started posting here. Consumer brands launched their own newsletters. And hundreds (or thousands) of journalists left legacy media to find a safe haven here.

In this article, I took the measure of these rapid changes. And I tried to anticipate what will happen next.

7. A Major Newspaper Publishes a Summer Reading List—but the Books Don’t Exist

The single biggest threat to culture right now is AI slop, which is squeezing out human artists with bot-generated garbage. Most readers here share my disgust, but media outlets are unfazed—even after so many scandals.

The starting point for this article was an embarrassing situation at the Chicago Sun-Times. The newspaper recommended books for summer reading—but the first ten books on their list didn’t exist. They were AI hallucinations.

Anybody with half a brain still intact can grasp the threat this poses. I also shared a KPMG survey which asked people about 14 possible risks from AI. Respondents rated every one of these risks as moderate or high

Silicon Valley is still in denial. And so are the bosses at many culture businesses. This story is ongoing, but I can already tell you that the worst is yet to come.

6. Our Shared Reality Will Self-Destruct in the Next 12 Months

Until recently, I could tell the difference between real video and AI video. The same was true of AI music and photos. But it’s now hard to identify the robots in our midst.

This article warn how this collapse in metrics of reality will impact us. I identify six symptoms—and you can already see them impacting society. And not for the better.

5. David Foster Wallace Tried to Warn Us About These Eight Things

I never met David Foster Wallace. But I grieved as though I lost a close friend after his suicide in 2008. He had a tremendous impact on my worldview and vocation as an author (or even as a human being).

And I lament his passing more each year—because almost everything he warned about in his writings and interviews is coming true. I wish he were still around to offer his guidance. But we can make a start by paying close attention to what he said while he was around.

I try to summarize it in eight key points in this popular article from September.

4. The World’s Largest Search Doesn’t Want You to Search.

During the last year, Google has gradually abandoned its commitment to providing search results. Instead of offering access to many viewpoints, it prioritizes a single AI-generated response. Goodbye diversity and pluralism, hello centralized control from Palo Alto.

The risks here are obvious and enormous.

Ted Gioia 10mo Some of you won't know what this is. All I'll say is....There were no paid placements, misleading ads, hallucinations, or AI slop anywhere in these drawers. That's why they were trustworthy. Web platforms should aspire to that level of trust. 2.1K 207

3. The Force-Feeding of AI on an Unwilling Public

Only 8% of the public will pay for AI. What about the rest of us?

We won’t be given a choice. We will be forced to use AI. And it’s already happening.

In this article, I look at the many ways we are manipulated and controlled by huge companies that want to eliminate humans from almost every vocation and sphere of life.

2. Ten Warning Signs (The Collapse of the Knowledge System)

It’s never easy to tell truth from lies. But in 2025, it got almost impossible. In this article, I outlined ten signs of a collapse in our knowledge system.

Read ‘em and weep:

1. What’s Happening to Students?

The most popular article on The Honest Broker this year, I shared horror stories from classrooms. We heard from teachers, and they aren’t mincing their words:

You guys don’t know what’s going on in education right now. That’s fine—how could you know unless you were working in it? But I think that you need to know….

First of all the kids have no ability to be bored whatsoever. They live on their phones. And they’re just fed a constant stream of dopamine from the minute their eyes wake up in the morning until they go to sleep at night.

Because they are in a constant state of dopamine withdrawal at school, they behave like addicts. They’re super emotional. The smallest things set them off.

When you are standing in front of them trying to teach, they’re vacant. They have no ability to tune in….

They’re not there.

And they have a level of apathy that I’ve never seen before in my whole career. Punishments don’t work because they don’t care about them. They don’t care about grades. They don’t care about college.

And it gets worse in college. One professor caught more than 40% of students cheating—and this was in a class on ethics!

We will have more to say about this in 2026. So stay tuned.

Here are five additional articles that generated lots of interest—but they are partially behind a paywall (available in full for premium subscribers):

I’d Do These Seven Things If I Were Starting Out in Music Today

My Secret Initiation into McKinsey

A Reading List for the End of Civilization

The 30 Most Intriguing Musicians of 2025

My 52-Week Humanities Immersion Program (Final Installment)

Let me close by thanking each of you for your participation and support. You are the best part of this whole shindig. So let’s do it again next year.