Online reviews are the wild west of human opinion, no sheriffs, no codes, just five-star love letters and one-star gunfights for individuals and products that frankly do not require them. There is somewhere in the world where a restaurant lost two stars because "the waiter looked like my ex-boyfriend," and a gas station has a five-star rating for "having vibes." Vibes! Not sanitation, not fuel quality, just vibes.
The issue is, when you provide individuals with a blank text space and the ability to rate something one through five, all logic takes a holiday. A fantastic fine hotel can be dismantled in a one-star polemic because "the free soap was too free, made me feel cheap."
While a ratty fast-food place with dim lighting and a raccoon clan in the dining area gets five stars because "the fries were crisp and Janet at the counter smiled once." And don't miss the blockbuster books that some critics pen. You've come by to see if the toaster works, but you're reading instead a 1,200-word essay on how the critic's marriage ended during vacation in 2017 and somehow the toaster is implicated.
And then there are the people who clearly have no idea what reviews are. A review of a museum: "One star didn't go inside." A review of a coffee shop: "Four stars, haven't tried the coffee yet." That's rating a book you never opened or Yelp feedback for your neighbor's dog for barking once.
Of course, the truly insane reviews are where people let loose years of unresolved emotional baggage on a product. A lawn chair isn't just a lawn chair, it's a symbol of betrayal, because "I sat in it, and my uncle never loved me." A blender isn't just a blender, it's a bad guy, because "it reminded me of the sound my mom made when she chewed ice in 1994."
#13 I Live A Block Away From A Golf Course And Love When This Opportunity Presents Itself
But that's the beauty of reviews on the internet. They're not reviews; they're glimpses into the horribly complicated inner lives of strangers. Sure, now and then you learn whether the tacos are good or not, but more often than not you learn that Barbara from Wisconsin has very strong feelings about how ketchup packets are dispensed.
And finally, maybe that's the reason we love them. They're not reliable, they're not fair, but they're unvarnished, raw humanity. Online reviews are proof that if given the freedom to rate anything, individuals will rate everything, common sense optional, drama guaranteed.
