Back in 2004, two former PayPal employees, Jeremy Stoppelman and Russell Simmons, started an email-based recommendation service that allowed friends to swap business reviews. They raised about $1 million in funding, and called it Yelp.
Today, it is one of the biggest spots on the internet for people to leave (and read) reviews about local businesses in North America.
Whether it’s hunting for a new pizza place, or choosing a good doctor, users can leave star ratings and post photos, or use it to find local events and book tables.
It racked up about 330 million total reviews by the end of 2025, and roughly 74 million people visit each month to check out what others are saying.
#4 This Would Be Customer Expected An Answer In The Middle Of The Night
#6 Just Found This Old Review On Yelp. What Do You Mean You Can’t Just Eat Pizza For Free?!
There’s a reason review sites like Yelp are so popular. Noone wants to waste their money on a gadget that breaks in a week, or a restaurant that doesn’t live up to the hype.
According to a 2026 report, 96% of people regularly check reviews before buying something for the first time.
The same number of people said they’ve changed their mind about a purchase after reading bad reviews, which just goes to show how much people rely on advice from strangers online.
When it comes to helpful reviews, readers really appreciate details. The most useful ones are the ones that spell out the specific pros and cons.
Yelp’s own data backs this up: 88% of consumers say written reviews are more trustworthy than just a star rating.
#9 I'd Have Done The Same Thing And They're Probably Mad They Didn't Get One
Regardless of how crazy some reviews can be, people are also wary of fake and paid ones. About 83% of users said they would avoid a business because of that.
About 16% said they check more than one platform to make sure the feedback is legit.
Many users also pay more attention to negative reviews, with about 48% saying they prefer to the read the most recent ones.
According to Yelp, not all reviews on their site are negative though—nearly 70% are 4 or 5 stars.
But what makes Yelp reviews so fascinating isn’t just the ratings, it’s how wildly dramatic some of them can be.
They’ve become a kind of internet joke in their own right.
There’s even a long‑running series of videos where professional actors give hilariously over‑the‑top readings of one‑star Yelp reviews, poking fun at how emotional some people get about their experiences.
These clips — first popularized by the group ‘Gotta Kid to Feed’ and resurfacing online again and again — went viral because they take everyday gripes and treat them like Shakespearean tragedy.
Whether it’s a furious bagel review or a complaint about a bird attack after lunch, some reviews are so dramatic and oddly specific that they feel less like feedback, and more like comedy.
#14 Yelper Shames Goth Bar In Buffalo, NY. Turns Out To Practically Be An Ad For Its Customers
There are also viral videos on TikTok where users recreate old Yelp rants, acting out every dramatic pause and gesture while reading real reviews word for word.
The hashtag #yelpreview has over 10 million views.
Staff at restaurants have also been filmed reading their own meanest customer reviews aloud, and Reddit threads are full of quotes so bizarre they’ve become memes.
Singer and comedian Grace Hayes turns real one-star Yelp complaints about fast-food joints into songs and posts them on social media.
It’s like a gentle musical rendition of someone complaining that their Arby’s order turned out to be a “mess of meats and curdled cheese.”
For one Yelp review of McDonald’s, she sings, “I shouldn’t have to chew my coffee.”
People don’t just leave bad reviews to help others avoid the same experience — there are also emotional and psychological reasons behind it.
Research suggests that writing a negative review can help people process a bad experience and even make them feel better. It’s just like how writing can help people work through strong feelings.
Any business, no matter how well run, can fall short of a customer’s expectation on any given day.
But bad reviews can be a double‑edged sword — they can hurt a reputation and sales, but they can also lead to improvements or stronger customer loyalty if handled well.
“Negative reviews can be very detrimental to firms. They’re much more impactful than positive ones. You remember a bad experience for a long time, and you tell more people about a bad experience than a good one,” says Vicki Morwitz, a professor at Columbia Business School.
She says businesses and online review sites should ask reviewers specifically for both the emotional and factual aspects.
“Obviously, as a business, you want to avoid those negative experiences to begin with, but inevitably they’re going to happen. This is one tool for making consumers feel better.”