They are everywhere--Facebook (which I gave up several months ago), Amazon, Twitter (which I never go on but hear about), IMDB, local libraries . . .I will admit that when I intend to buy something, I often do check reviews. I avoid 1-star and 5-star reviews on Amazon, but often 3 and 4-star reviews can be quite helpful in determining what I should risk my money on, at least re: content.
And on Amazon at least (and IMDB), the sheer volume of customers means that the reviews eventually even out. Just about everything on IMDB, with a few exceptions, earns a C, falling into the 70% range.
But even Amazon and IMDB rating systems bug me. At the local level, rating stuff like books gets positively weird. My local library has a rating feature for books and movies, etc. The lack of volume means that most reviews fall into four categories: sycophantic, nasty, crazy, and irrelevant.
What continues to bother me, however, is the underlying implication of all these systems. One could argue that the purpose of a rating system is to help people avoid buying bad products. One could also argue that the purpose of a rating system is to help like-minded people find each other. But how people often use these rating systems--whether starred reviews or smiley faces or thumbs-up--is to "help" other people make the so-called right choices.That is, you should spend your time and/or money on this, not that.
Whatever happened to, I read something. I like it or I don't like it? Whatever happened to: I will decide for myself? Or, I like this even if no-one else does?
Thankfully, despite the brainwashing, I still consider, But this is what the reviews (i.e. the bandwagon) said! to be a pretty pointless argument when it comes to whether or not I'll read or watch something. And I will generally ignore reviews--even on Amazon--that use that kind of reasoning.
But then I ignored my snobby friends in high school who made fun of my reading choices--because there's a stupid reason not to read something.
When did the whole world turn into high school?
2 comments:
I don't the quality of the work is entirely relative but I tend to think that it really complex. There are some works of fiction that a lot of people love that I don't care for: The Great Gatsby, Lee Child's Jack Reacher novels. Yet, people obviously see something in these books.
A big problem with reviews is that the criteria differs from person-to-person. Pick a random item on Amazon and it's likely there will be a one star review about shipping, not the quality of the product. Conversely, many top reviews are about the reputation of the company (directory, actor, author) not about the specific work.
It's also weird to read many reviews covering the middle which are very objective and specific and then read a 5 star (or 10 star) review which completely glosses over the clear problems in the product. (And even there it can get strange; recently was looking at reviews for something and almost every review mentioned a specific issue, even most of the 5 star reviews brought it up, but then dismissed it.)
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