Are you old enough to remember Soviet figure skating judges in the Winter Olympics? They used to be accused all the time of putting their thumb on the scale, lowering the allegedly “objective” scoring for American skaters so as to get the results they wanted. If you recall, I reserved the same right this year in counting down the top ten posts on this blog and by me on LinkedIn in 2025.

Today’s post in the Top Ten, which comes in at number eight in the countdown, is the first instance in which I have lowered a post from where it would otherwise rank on sheer number of readers based on subjective, Soviet thumb on the scale judging.

Why? Well, it’s a great post, in my opinion – it has video, it has internet mob currency, it has McDonald’s in it, it has AI, it has insurance bad faith, it is visually appealing (if I say so myself) and it makes a good point. And, judging from the number of readers, it is an objectively very good post.

But it has a relatively high flash to substance ratio (by the standards of lawyers and legal thought, at least; we are not exactly in TikTok influencer territory here) and I am, by nature, more of a substance over flash lawyer.

So I dropped it a couple of notches in the countdown for these reasons, but to be fair, I really like it nonetheless.

And so, here is my eighth most popular post on this blog or on LinkedIn in 2025, which asked what internet backlash against a very funny but AI driven McDonald’s ad can teach us about insurers relying on AI in claims handling.