Chapter 4
The Information Economy of Reviews: From Stars to Unboxing
In our consumer culture, comments often function as reviews that guide purchasing decisions. Louis C.K. perfectly captured the modern consumer's dilemma in a comedy bit about the absurdity of obsessively researching the "best" product. This paradox of having too much information creates what psychologists call "maximizers"-people who must optimize every decision, often spending hours reading reviews only to feel disappointed when products fall short of expectations.
Reviews have ancient roots in human commentary. Just as Babylonians created dictionaries for Sumerian texts and ancients developed "scholia" to help decipher texts lacking vowels and punctuation, modern reviews help us navigate consumer choices. During the Enlightenment, the proliferation of books led Leibniz to complain of the "horrible mass of books that keeps on growing," spawning new forms of commentary like comprehensive indexes and discriminating reviews.
The star rating system represents the compression of expression to its essence-a simple judgment of quality. This system has historical precedent: Michelin began rating restaurants with stars in the 1920s, eventually settling on the three-star system we know today, with meanings as modest as "Worth a detour" (two stars) or "Worth a journey" (three stars).
Facebook's "like" button, launched in April 2010, represented an even greater compression of expression. Mark Zuckerberg predicted over one billion uses in its first day. Though unsubstantiated, the feature's impact was evident as competitors quickly followed with alternatives like Google's "+1" button.
Different reviewing approaches have emerged to serve different needs. Digital photography forums like DPReview epitomize the engineer's approach, offering exhaustive 20+ page reviews with charts, tables, and sample images. This technical approach traces back to early 20th century engineers like Frederick Taylor and Stuart Chase, who applied scientific methods to economic and social reform. Their work led to the founding of Consumer Research in 1929 and eventually Consumer Reports, which maintains this engineering legacy with rigorous testing and statistical accuracy.
In contrast, Kevin Kelly's Cool Tools blog exemplifies the "liker" approach, celebrating "tried and true" items that "really work." This ethos, from the original Whole Earth Catalog through Boing Boing and Cool Tools, represents the idea that sharing reviews can be a personal offering reflecting one's enthusiasms and experiences for others' benefit-even when reviewing something as mundane as an egg timer or pencil sharpener.
Chapter 5
The Dark Side: Manipulation and Fake Reviews
While reviews can be tremendously helpful, they're increasingly compromised by fakery and manipulation. Research reveals the alarming scale of this problem-computer scientists have developed models showing that about one-third of all consumer reviews may be fake. Analysis of over 610,000 book reviews found suspicious patterns suggesting approximately 10.3% of products studied were subject to manipulation. Similarly, analysis of Boston restaurant reviews found 16% were filtered by Yelp as potentially fraudulent.
Unlike spam, fake reviews are deliberately deceptive rather than merely annoying. The practice of writing fake reviews bloomed alongside the review genre itself; 18th-century botanists like Linnaeus wrote self-congratulatory reviews, calling his own work "a masterpiece that can never be read and admired enough." Literary figures from Walter Scott to Walt Whitman and Anthony Burgess similarly engaged in anonymous self-promotion.
Today's fake review economy operates at various price points and sophistication levels. Budget options include overseas "review sweatshops" and tech-savvy homeless people earning money through sites like BitCoinGet. American reviewers typically charge $5-20 per review, with sophisticated operations requiring reviewers to post varied ratings over time from unique accounts to avoid detection.
The payoff can be substantial: author John Locke purchased 300 reviews for his self-published books before selling millions of copies and securing a Simon & Schuster distribution deal. As Marilyn Strathern observed: "When a measure becomes a target it ceases to be a good measure."
The arms race between comment systems and manipulators is perfectly exemplified by CAPTCHAs-those distorted text puzzles designed to distinguish humans from bots. As automated scripts became sophisticated enough to solve CAPTCHAs, the puzzles grew increasingly difficult, frustrating legitimate human users. This led to services like "Death by CAPTCHA" offering 1,000 solutions for just $1.39, claiming 90% accuracy within 15 seconds.
Chapter 6
The Feedback Economy: Constructive Criticism in Digital Spaces
Not all comments are reviews-many function as feedback intended to help others improve. The fear of public criticism ranks among our most common anxieties, yet feedback is essential for growth. Organizations like Toastmasters International address this anxiety by creating supportive environments where evaluators avoid the "three Cs" (criticize, complain, condemn) and instead perform the "three Rs" (review, reward, recommend).
Fan fiction communities have developed a sophisticated culture of feedback through "beta reading"-borrowed from computing's concept of beta testing software. These amateur writers have created a nuanced vocabulary for different types of commentary, distinguishing between "concrit" (constructive criticism with specific improvement suggestions), "commentary" (reader response for the author), "review" (commentary intended for other readers), and "flaming" (hurtful, nonproductive commentary).
Even well-intentioned feedback can be difficult to give and receive. Common pitfalls include focusing on the person rather than the work, making broad generalizations, and complaining without suggesting improvements. The "sandwich technique"-praise, critique, then praise again-is widely recommended. Research confirms these community practices: destructive criticism undermines confidence and performance, while novices respond better to positive feedback and experts to constructive criticism.
At Photo.net, one of the web's oldest photography communities, members debate the appropriateness of "tweak critique"-making direct alterations to others' photographs as feedback. While some view it as the site's most valuable feature, others find it presumptuous. The community generally respects explicit requests not to alter photos and recommends adding watermarks to tweaked versions to avoid confusion with originals.
The concept of direct editing extends beyond photography into software development, where version control systems track revisions and allow easy reverting of problematic changes. Developers prefer receiving actual code patches rather than bug reports, finding direct fixes more efficient. However, this can lead to harsh criticism in communities like Linux, where maintainer Linus Torvalds embraced public mockery as "half the fun of open-source programming."
Chapter 7
The Dark Side of Comment: Trolls, Hate, and Harassment
Online anonymity creates distinct psychological effects. Plato's Ring of Gyges story questioned whether invisibility corrupts the just, while modern research shows people behave differently when unidentifiable. Zimbardo's experiments demonstrated that hooded participants administered more shocks than those wearing nametags, and studies of trick-or-treating children showed anonymous groups cheated more frequently.
Online, this manifests as "Internet balls" or the "Internet fuckwad theory" where normal people become aggressive when anonymous with an audience. While some trolling stems from contextual factors affecting good people, research indicates a small percentage (5.6%) actively enjoy trolling and score high on sadism measures, representing "bad people acting up" rather than good people in bad environments.
Gender dynamics play a crucial role in online harassment. Susan Herring's research shows only about 5% of posters (mostly men) generate most adversarial rhetoric. While both genders value politeness, these men prioritize "freedom of expression" over consequences, acting as self-appointed "vigilantes" on the "virtual frontier." This explains the frequent invocation of free speech arguments (mockingly called "FREEZE PEACH!") to justify harassment.
The PyCon "dongle incident" exemplifies how online comment can spiral out of control. After Adria Richards tweeted a photo of men making inappropriate jokes at a tech conference, she faced horrific harassment including racist and sexist slurs, rape and death threats. Media scholar Emma Jane characterizes such "e-bile" as featuring profanity, ad hominem attacks, stereotyping, and hyperbolic imagery of sexualized violence.
The relationship between authors and reviewers on Goodreads exemplifies another battleground in online comment culture. Goodreads positions itself as both a reader community and author promotion platform, creating an inherently unstable dynamic where authors inevitably overhear readers' candid opinions about their work. This led to the creation of the Stop the Goodreads Bullies (STGRB) site, which controversially "outed" critical reviewers by publishing their personal information.
Chapter 8
How Comments Shape Our Identity and Well-Being
Beyond informing or alienating us, comments actively shape our sense of self. Online comment isn't simply an external annoyance but often an emotionally significant part of constructing one's social identity. While traditional theory suggests seeing oneself (as in a mirror) diminishes self-esteem, research shows viewing one's Facebook profile actually enhances it-especially when users can edit their presentation.
The selfie phenomenon exemplifies this control over self-presentation, though people remain uncomfortable with unflattering photos posted by others. Some, like frequent social media user Triana Lavey, even pursue cosmetic surgery after becoming self-conscious about features in Facebook photos: "I think social media has really changed so much about how we look at ourselves and judge ourselves."
Social comparison affects well-being in the digital age. South Koreans, among the most wired people globally, have high rates of cosmetic surgery, suggesting media exposure influences beauty standards. Drawing on Robert Frank and Philip Cook's "Winner-Take-All Society," global competition diminishes well-being as people compare themselves to world-class successes.
Facebook usage correlates with feelings of dissatisfaction and envy-the "FOMO" (fear of missing out) phenomenon-as users passively consume others' carefully curated lives. Research shows people typically overestimate others' happiness because negative emotions are hidden in social settings, creating a spiral of self-promotion and envy. Studies reveal a small but significant decline in mood following Facebook use.
The rise of selfies, sexting and reality TV has sparked concerns about increasing narcissism. Headlines regularly question if social media is creating narcissists. While popular usage of "narcissism" loosely means self-obsessed, clinical definitions are more precise: narcissists crave success and admiration but respond to threats with rage. The "narcissistic paradox" is that they seek self-affirmation in ways that destroy their relationships.
Chapter 9
The Quantification of Everything: Rating Our World
Society increasingly embraces quantification as a surrogate for quality assessment, transforming subjective experiences into measurable data points. Sociologist George Ritzer noted this trend in 1983, observing that McDonald's-style "rationalization" was reshaping society through efficiency, predictability, and calculability. This "McDonaldization" process has since accelerated, spreading from fast food to healthcare, education, and personal relationships. Quality is "notoriously difficult to evaluate," while computers excel at counting, leading to quantifiable measures for everything from hamburgers to physicians, teacher effectiveness scores to hospital rankings.
What distinguishes modern rationalization is that the assessment of people has been democratized through countless online sources. Review platforms like Yelp and TripAdvisor have made everyone a critic, while LinkedIn endorsements and RateMyProfessor scores reduce professional capability to star ratings. Klout attempted to quantify social influence by processing "signals" from multiple networks to compute a single score (Obama: 99, Bieber: 92). The platform analyzed over 400 variables across social networks to determine influence, including retweets, likes, and comments. Critics like Rohn Jay Miller argued that Klout sold "the lie that social influence and connectedness can be measured quantitatively," benefiting advertisers rather than users. The platform's eventual shutdown in 2018 highlighted the limitations of reducing human complexity to numerical scores.
Modern dating exemplifies our obsession with quantification. Men still rate women on the "Bo Derek scale," particularly in the "seduction community" where discussions include decimal ratings of "hot babes." Dating apps like Tinder and Bumble have transformed romance into a numbers game, with algorithms matching users based on data points and swipe patterns. Dating services increasingly optimize for efficiency-from online profiles to "PowerPoint parties" where daters have six minutes to pitch themselves, complete with slides and metrics about their dating history and relationship goals. Speed dating events often include scorecards and rating systems, reducing chemistry to checkboxes and numerical scores.
Even friendship has been quantified: Burger King's 2008 "Whopper Sacrifice" campaign offered a free sandwich to people who unfriended ten Facebook connections, with 23,000 people participating before Facebook shut down the promotion. Social media platforms now provide detailed analytics about friendship interactions, including engagement rates, response times, and interaction frequencies. Instagram and Twitter followers have become a currency of social worth, while Facebook's algorithm determines which friends' posts we see based on quantified interaction patterns. This metrics-driven approach to relationships reflects a broader cultural shift toward valuing what can be measured over what might be meaningful but resistant to quantification.
Chapter 10
Finding Meaning in the Bewildering World of Comments
Online comments often leave us confused and amused-bemused-as expressed through the common exclamation "WTF?" This bewilderment reflects a fundamental disconnect between how different people interpret and express value online. People's puzzling rating choices reveal the vast gap between our expectations and others' reasoning systems, highlighting how personal experience shapes digital interaction.
A viral review giving 4/5 stars to a carbon monoxide detector that "saved our son's life" sparked widespread parodies and confusion across social media platforms. Many wondered why a life-saving device wouldn't merit a perfect score. The actual reviewer, KayBe, maintained a consistent rating philosophy across hundreds of reviews, evaluating products solely on quality and durability concerns, regardless of their life-saving potential or emotional impact. This systematic approach, while logical to KayBe, challenged others' intuitive understanding of rating scales.
Rating systems continue to confound us with their arbitrary scales and ambiguous meanings. The medical pain scale, ranging from 1-10, particularly frustrates both medical professionals and patients. Comedian Brian Regan hilariously captured this dilemma when describing his hospital experience - unable to claim a "10" (reserved for broken femurs) or "9" (childbirth), he reluctantly settled on "8" to justify receiving morphine. This highlights how symbols mean radically different things to different people - while some view "6/10" as slightly positive, others interpret it as nearly failing. Cultural differences further complicate these interpretations, with some countries viewing 70% as excellent while others consider it barely passing.
Product reviews have evolved beyond mere consumer guidance into a medium for collective amusement and cultural commentary. Countless products attract comical reviews on Amazon, becoming subjects of viral "funniest" or "stupidest" review listicles. The "Three Wolf Moon" t-shirt phenomenon exemplifies this trend - after law student Brian Govern's satirical review went viral, claiming the shirt granted him mystical powers and romantic success, the product spent nearly 200 days on Amazon's Top 100 list. The review sparked thousands of similar creative submissions, leading Amazon to eventually acknowledge these entertainment-focused reviews with a dedicated "funny reviews" page.
Sometimes online comments reveal unexpected sociological phenomena that reshape our understanding of human experience. The autonomous sensory meridian response (ASMR) community emerged entirely through online comments, beginning with a 2009 forum post where someone described a "really nice feeling" triggered by watching an unboxing video. This sparked hundreds of responses from others experiencing similar tingling sensations, previously thought to be unique personal experiences. This comment-driven discovery led to numerous research projects, specialized YouTube channels with millions of subscribers, and mainstream recognition of ASMR as a genuine physiological response. The phenomenon demonstrates how digital spaces enable people to identify and validate shared experiences that might otherwise remain isolated and unnamed.
Chapter 11
Conclusion: Finding Balance in a Comment-Saturated World
Despite the maxim "never read the comments," online commentary remains both compelling and problematic. Like watching the game show "Family Feud," reading comments offers insight into what people are thinking-right or wrong, offensive or trite-making us confront the reality that "we have met the commenter, and he is us."
New approaches to comment systems continue to emerge. Lawrence Lessig praised Medium.com's annotation-style comments. Jeff Atwood, co-founder of Discourse, argues that successful platforms must "suppress discussion" to maintain signal-to-noise ratio, noting that "if you are unwilling to moderate your online community, you don't deserve to have an online community." Ta-Nehisi Coates similarly compares comment moderation to gardening: "Once you take out the rubbish and clear away the weeds, flowers begin to grow."
As online discussion struggles with scammers and haters, commenting systems continuously fortify against abuse while new platforms emerge as people search for "intimate serendipity"-spaces for authentic self-expression without fear of attack. Alternatively, some simply withdraw. Even Dave Winer, credited with deploying the first blog comments, eventually disabled them, concluding they're "not worth the trouble."
Comment has become an inescapable characteristic of contemporary life. It can inform, improve and shape people positively, but also alienate, manipulate and harm. Rather than broad polemics about technology's wonders or perils, we must find ways to use comment effectively. Can we develop policies and technologies supporting our highest ideals? Can we cultivate self-esteem based on improvement rather than flattery? Can we occasionally disconnect?
These aren't rhetorical questions, but essential ones requiring mindfulness. Just as good communities need moderation, individuals benefit from setting intentions when going online rather than sleepwalking through digital spaces. Comment is only as "commenterrible" as we allow it to be, and understanding it requires reading the comments at the bottom of the web.
