Criticism of Criticism

This is a pretty fascinating piece about what seems to be a growing problem--the fake online review.

As for me...hmm. I've been writing Amazon reviews for some time now; I don't quite have the sheer focus and productivity necessary to climb into the top ranks, but I did get to the point where they started sending me free stuff (through their Vine program) as long as I reviewed it. And think I wrote fewer positive reviews of that stuff, and I eventually kinda stopped reading their newsletter of new free stuff they sent (and are still sending) out every month.

Why? Frankly, I'm usually writing reviews because I'm passionate about something. (Sometimes it's because it's new and I want to sound off early, but not often.) I don't care if 721 other people are giving their take on Goodfellas, it's a movie that meant a lot to me, so if I can articulate that in a semi-interesting way, I'm gonna have my say, too. So when I'm writing reviews for me, I end up giving a lot of positive reviews, because I generally review things I love. (Granted, there are some exceptions.)

Anyway, when they were sending me stuff and I had to review it, even though I got to pick what they were sending me, some irrational and unknown combination of factors (frustration about my sense of obligation, willful refusal to see what other people were writing about those products) led me to write reviews that were probably slightly more negative, on the whole. And they still kept sending me emails to get new free stuff, so I totally respected them all the more. (Full disclosure: I did recently apply for a book editor job there. No word yet, but, hey, it could still happen.) But my interest in the Vine program withered.

Anyway, I can honestly say I was never tempted to try and contact someone to get paid for a good review, or turn in a review that didn't represent my actual opinion of a product that I had consumed in its entirety. But can I honestly say my reviews were accurate, and unbiased by emotion? Probably not, as this book and this book make clear.

Long story short, there are plenty of great and relatively trustworthy reviewers online, but they have a host of biases of which they're not even aware. And there are an even greater number of mediocre reviewers, and an unknown (but possibly even greater) number of paid review whores/hitmen/man-whores/hitwomen. (Like how I balanced out all the sexism in that analogy?) So we need people to do a better job of reviewing these reviewers, so we can sort out the wheat from the chaff. Criticism of criticism, people, that's the next frontier. Let's get crackin'!