We reached out to the creator of one of these online communities full of ridiculous and bizarre customer comments that have been entertaining their 17.4K members since 2018. The moderator was kind enough to have a little chat with us about the subreddit and the secrets behind successful reviews.
When asked about the inspiration behind creating this online group, the mod revealed that they didn’t really have any. However, they knew there’s “a trend on Reddit where people respond to a post or comment with a subreddit name, such as, when a joke flies over somebody’s head, they respond with r/woosh, or something similar.”
“There was no subreddit on this site, at least that I was aware of then and now, that would act as a compendium for reviews both ridiculous and outlandish, and so I decided I’d make it and see where it went,” they explained. “It slowly grew and somehow got into the tens-of-thousands of subscribers, so I suppose it was a wise choice.”
Talking about the community, the moderator believes that the majority of the members are just regular people, “with not a huge amount of commonality, who all come together to have a laugh or discussion around reviews of any nature.” They noticed that reviews of a hypocritical or unreasonable nature tend to get a lot of interaction from the community.
“With the COVID-19 pandemic, many angry reviews of people bashing a company for enforcing mask mandates, especially in states where they don’t even have a say, seem quite popular as people point out how outlandish it is to blame a store for choosing public health and safety, or even when the decision is out of their hands.”
“Second place seems to be humorous reviews,” the mod added. “On the weekends, joke and satire reviews are allowed, and whether it’s a review that’s genuine or satirical, funny reviews seem to do quite well, giving everyone a laugh in the process.”
When asked about what they define as a successful post on their sub, the creator thinks it’s typically one of the bizarre ones. They told us that some people are plain mad or outright lying in their reviews. Others are even harassing workers over policies put in place for the sake of public health. Still, often they get called out by the staff of the place being reviewed.
It seems that absurd and odd judgments are more successful “than joke reviews because there is a discussion to be had around it. People tend to engage more with posts where the review is less silly in its outlandishness, such as the (quite common) elderly person leaving a 1-star review saying ‘I have never been here’ or something similar.”
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“Reviews made out of malice, spite, or lies, tend to have engagement around them.” The mod mentioned that people who have worked in jobs that would be suspect to such feedback can find a common thread and come together.
Workers can discuss “how, despite what some may think, the customer is not always right, and they lash out in reviews when they find out so. Posts with room for discussion almost always become popular from what I’ve seen.”
The creator of this subreddit mentioned that they really enjoy moderating it. “Outside of people spamming their social media links or ads here, the community is well-behaved,” they revealed that very little actual moderation is needed.
“Any time I get a report for something, it’s a report sent almost always for spam, so the subreddit hardly needs moderating outside of removing spam posts,” the mod added. Still, they do appreciate being a part of it because some of the posts give them a good laugh. “I’m glad I made a community where people can come together over the ever-chaotic internet review.”
Yet, the moderator wished to add that while many people write their judgments on how good a place or a business is, “It’s important now more than ever to leave reviews for proper reasons.”
“Personally, I have worked both retail and foodservice, and 99% of problems are completely outside the hands of everyone in the store, yet people leave bad reviews,” the moderator said. “I understand and sympathize with people who have bad experiences, but if your experience was bad, I can almost guarantee nobody there wanted it to be bad.”
“If the customers are having a bad experience, so too are the workers, and now more than ever, [they] are pushed mentally and physically to the limit,” the mod asks to have some empathy for the people out there doing their jobs. “Don’t leave reviews because a minimum-wage worker made an honest mistake. More often than not, it can come back to hurt him, even if it was outside his control.”
On a final note, the creator of the sub mentioned that reviews are used too often to slander workers who are trying their hardest and can’t change whatever challenge or issues might be happening. “So think before you leave a 1-star review, and think before you point a finger and blame someone because something went wrong.”
