The Essay Architecture Prize offered $10,000 to the best Internet essay that captured the spirit of 2025. From hundreds of uploads and a four-branch judging process, The Best Internet Essays 2025 emerged. It's an anthology of 13 essays that each use personal experience to make sense of the year. You'll find recurring themes on rootedness, loss, wonder, vulnerability, and ultimately, the power of attention in a culture designed to hijack it. This is the first artifact in an ongoing process to discover and distribute timeless essays from independent online writers.

Included are this year's winner, Tommy Dixon, our 10 finalists, a closing essay by guest judge Henrik Karlsson, and an introduction by organizer Michael Dean, founder of Essay Architecture.

1 — Michael Dean, On curation 2 — Tommy Dixon, On scrolling alone 3 — Matt Švarcs Richardson, On longevity 4 — Lily Luo, On Charlie Kirk 5 — James Taylor Foreman, On marriage 6 — Alissa Mears, On miscarriage 7 — Kylan Emms, On defying violence 8 — Noelle Perdue, On flirting 9 — Max Nussenbaum, On enlameification 10 — Catherine Melo, On finishing books 11 — Simon Sarris, On pleasure 12 — Garrett Kincaid, On nature's brilliance 13 — Henrik Karlsson, On attention

What makes this prize unique is the process in how we determined "the best" essays. Instead of a single guest judge, or a panel with an agenda, we scored each shortlisted essay across four branches, each with its own definition of quality:

Composition: The shortlist was picked using the Essay Architecture framework, a pattern language for essays. All entrants got 27 scores, 1-5, on concepts across idea, form, and voice. High scores in this branch were well-crafted, well-rounded "unitive essays," fusing the soul of a memoirist, the rigor of a philosopher, and the pen of a poet.

Perspective: From there, a panel of eight judges scored each essay according to their own unique criteria, including emotion, humor, authenticity, pragmatism, complexity, timelessness, prescience, and hope. This branch focused less on craft, and more on a cultural perspective. High scores in this branch had inter-subjective resonance. Our judges: Charlie Bleecker, Alex Dobrenko, CansaFis Foote, Elle Griffin, Lellida Marinelli, Jasmine Sun, Dylan O'Sullivan, and Isabel Unravelled.

Taste: Henrik Karlsson, our guest judge, did not have any specified criteria. While the other branches deconstruct quality into parts, this one is about a gut-level conviction towards the whole essay. Henrik ranked the essays according to his personal taste, capturing the intangible qualities of an essay that might slip through any framework.

Zeitgeist: The judges above were asked to score how well each essay represented 2025. This branch is focused on the topic, which helps the collection cohere into a mosaic of the year.

Given all these competing lenses of quality, you would think there'd be little conensus, that quality is subjective, that there can be no "best." But when we zoomed out and compiled the results, it was clear that some essays resonated across the different branches. Those are the ones we're printing.

The Internet needs a quality algorithm. Our existing algorithms are built around attention, engagement, revenue, all of which benefit the platform, leaving great essays in the gutters. The finalists in this book have audiences of all sizes, ranging from tens to tens of thousands of subscribers. The thesis of this project is that the Internet has triggered a golden age of the essay, but it's disaggregated and drowning in slop, and so curation systems like this are needed to make the movement legible.

This is the first experiment in creating an internet-native essay prize. This means (1) there are no constraints on age, location, topic, or credentials; (2) writers keep all their publishing rights; (3) the criteria are transparent; and (4) participants own the anthology. 100% of the royalties from The Best Internet Essays 2025 will go towards the writers (44%), the judges (30%), and the 2026 prize pool (26%). By buying this anthology, you not only get a book of excellent essays, but you directly support the people behind it, and help this grow into an annual tradition.

There are 1,000 copies of the inaugural edition.

Sales close on March 31st, and shipping starts in early April.

The Best Internet Essays 2025 Organized and published by Essay Architecture Paperback, 183 pages, pocket-sized (4.25 x 6.875") ISBN: 979-8-9950331-0-3