Culture -- 19 days ago
The Naff Index, Summer 2025
It's been another bumper year for bad taste...
Words: Joseph Bullmore
Welcome to the Naff Index, Summer 2025 — the annual report that asks the question: “and presumably the shoes were a gift?”
In many ways, this is our most important list yet. With the relentless march of AI, surely the final thing to divide us from the machines will be our intractable snobberies? After all, can Chat GPT tell you why your new email sign off is awful? Or that it's okay that saunas make you feel a bit weird?
Until the Singularity of Taste is reached, then, (and at which point might I be the first to tell our new overlords how sharp their algorithm looks) allow Gentleman’s Journal to be your canary down the mine of modern culture. I'm pretty sure the canaries got out just fine.
Splitting the ‘G’
Oura rings
BA tier points
DryRobes
Corporate padel
Destination weddings
Morning routines
Run clubs
‘Eat the Rich’
Restaurant merch
Launching podcasts
Recommending podcasts
Foreign golf trips
London hotel pricing
Veneers
WhatsApp groups
Rechargeable vapes
Non-rechargeable vapes
Waistcoats at non-morning suit weddings
Shoes off indoors
Queuing for statement sandwiches
Seeking Oasis tickets
High spec mattresses
Accidental iambic pentameter in the best man’s speech
Rattan garden furniture with wipe-clean cushions
Athletes biting their medals
Voice notes
Marseille
Stamp duty
Self-diagnosing ADHD
Explaining the menu
Winnie the Pooh references in wedding speeches
Using Chat GPT instead of Google
Complaining about human obsolescence
Hot honey
Hyrox
Live music
Surrey
