Welcome, one and all, to the 2025 Peely Awards! Over the past ten years, all the way back to 2016, the Avocado has come together to honor the worst of pop culture. For the next two weeks, we’ll be joyously mocking colossal failures, misguided fiascos and the strangest of instant pop culture artifacts. I’m Wolfman Jew, and with me as co-host, vote tabulatress, and attack dog is Lily-Bones.

For those who’ve never participated, what makes the Peely’s special is how it’s tailored to the community and the year. Because while we have a few staple categories we use every year, the vast majority are actually nominated and voted on by the community itself. This means we can more easily respond to cultural shifts and especially terrible flops. It’s also a generally fun and positive experience. Yes, there’s schadenfreude and a ton of it, but we actually do try to avoid the rusty meanness of something like the Razzie Awards. The Avocado is a community that tries to be supportive of each other and considerate of the world’s evils and complexities. Those values won’t be ignored so we can be slightly meaner.

…But obviously, some meanness is plenty fine, too. And hoo boy, were there some art and artists this year deserving of barbs. Acts of grotesque literary hagiography, terrible blockbusters, and a couple’a big gaming flops were all the rage.

The process is fairly simple. This is Round I, where people put forth categories. You can nominate whatever, whether it’s something specific to this year, an evergreen field we’ve done several times, or something you or someone else put forth in a previous year. And for the next week, put forth as many ideas as you’d like and vote for every other category that tickled your fancy. Then in a week, we start Round II, where they become the avenue for us to relentlessly mock this year’s pop culture.

The perennial categories are as follows: Best Moment That’s Just Deeply Satisfying to the Primordial Lizard Part of Our Brains, Worst Pre-2025 Pop Culture that You Experienced for the First Time This Year, Silliest Title for an Eric Roberts Movie Released in 2025, Worst Video Game, Worst Song or Album, Worst Television Season or Miniseries, Worst Book, and Worst Film of 2025. Eight of them, out of what’s historically been forty or forty-five. It’s up to eight this time, as we felt that the “worst pre-2025 pop culture” was good enough to be a staple.

I should note that we don’t operate purely by vote total in Round I. Some categories get a lot of votes but just don’t have enough material to sustain at least five nominees. Some categories end up being kinda similar, and we like to combine them in a way that represents everyone who contributed. And some are really good ideas that came in too late to get nearly enough votes, and including them can help add a nice, zesty spice. That being said, we do our best to respond to what you collectively want and the direction the awards are going. One thing that can really help us are comments. If you see a category that you think is good, compliment it! Talk about (and mock) possible nominees that could fit in there! Generate discussion and ideas! Round I isn’t just a stepping stone to the main event; it’s the beginning of a dialogue.

Finally… Peely’s can be pretty intense. We get hundreds of comments, nominations, and votes, especially in Round II. We do ultimately feel that the excitement and dynamism from the process is worth some of the technical issues, as you get to see other people’s ideas, chat and joke with your friends, and accrue an entire year’s worth of upvotes in a few weeks. It’s an incredibly communal experience. So be aware, be chill, and be nice.