I meant to write this corny article ages ago, but was only reminded of my procrastination recently with the announcement of “Peeple”, the latest retarded, yet unnecessary app in the increasingly overcrowded market of retarded, unnecessary apps. Peeple is an app that lets you rate other people. It’s one of those lowest common denominator sites that takes an idea that was already successful and simplifies it, or merely applies that established idea to some other topic. Kind of like how Twitter is just a half-ass blog site for people who can only write single sentences, or how Vine is Youtube for D+ students.
My original idea was to review individual people who write reviews on Yelp, because Yelp is essentially the Walmart of the internet. The site tends to attract a few discrete types of people. You have the trendy hipster types who want to wax poetic about that great bar or that overpriced vegan restaurant down the street. (“It’s sooo good. I can’t even…”) Then you have the entitled narcissists, who jump at the chance to bitch and moan about every instance in which they aren’t catered to hand over foot. (“Oh my gawd. I had to wait like 5 minutes. One star!”) Rarely do reviews on Yelp fall into the neutral middle ground in the same manner they do on some of the major online retailer’s product reviews. Most are poorly written however, so at least there’s some sort of consistency going on.
The reviews aren’t written merely to inform, but rather to garner some sort of reaction for the person writing the review, as if they are the main attraction and not the establishment in question. There is an overwhelming social media slant to Yelp, with the site even having a focus on “friend-collecting” like on facebook or myspace. How does writing a few reviews about restaurants necessitate the adding of other people on the site as friends? What purpose does this even serve? One of the draws of social media is that accomplished feeling you get based on how high of a friends list count you reach. Do you actually hang out with, or even know any of these other people who write half-assed reviews on Yelp, or is the friends list essentially just a “high score” of sorts that you try to increase for some non-existent reward.
Yelp also has a completely unnecessary rating system for their reviews. Their reviews have three buttons, one of which is a “useful” button, which is ironically, the only useful one. It’s the time-tested qualifier for whether or not a review sticks to the topic and relays pertinent information, which many other sites have used for years. Yelp also adds two completely pointless buttons into the mix as well. There is a “funny” button and a “cool” button, neither or which convey any sort of practical information to the person using the site. Reviews that contain no humor whatsoever will have still end up with a count beside the funny button, and people will still click on the cool button even though it serves absolutely no purpose. These buttons are essentially an evaluation of the person posting, and have nothing to do with what is being reviewed. Reading some of these pointless reviews, I can’t help but wish there was a “useless” button. The site in general is a bit of an unrefined shit show.
I’m getting tired of writing about something as uninteresting as Yelp, so let’s wrap this equally uninteresting post up and get to the point. Here is my Yelp-style Yelp review of Yelp:
———————————————————————————————————————-
MeatGoblet wrote a review for Yelp™ One minute ago
★★★★★ 11/8/2015
Hay guys! it’s ya boy Meat Goblet here. Man.let me tell you. all my friends where talkin’ about this site called Yelp online and I figured I’d check it out. Hey man. Its pretty good. So its like this social media site like myspace or somethin that you can also rate stuff on. they got a place you can put all you’re freshest pics up so that other people will think you’re hot or whatevr else. Maybe you can meet like a girl friend or boyfreind of whatever else. they also got neat-o buttons n shit that you can push all on to let peepz know that that there writings are funny and cool or whatever else. Then they got personal info stats on the side so that people can get to no you better. they got THings liek “things I love” & “my first concert”. They got other important stuff to like ‘cUrrent crush”. U know, all the things people need 2 know about you on a review sight. its pretty good. I definatly like it beter than myspace bacuse you can add all your friends and pictures but U can also make reviews 2 and thats good becuase its another creative outlit and gets U better at writting. So add me as you’re friend on there and dont forget to click the funy and cool buttons cause my review was definatley cool and funny. Later!
Was this review…?
☐ useful 1 ☐ funny 11 ☐ cool 9