Don't Whine, Don't
Whimper, Don't Cry. And, Above All, Don't Yelp
Anybody who drops by here knows I don't
have a lot of use for Yelp and other social media outlets of the sort. The reason is simple: too much democracy. It's the same reason the Founding Fathers chose a democratic republic for
our form of government. In theory, at least, under a republic,
ordinary people choose educated and qualified individuals from among
their ranks to represent them in the decisions that will affect them.
In a true democracy, it's every man for himself. Just throw it all
out there and see what sticks. Social media “review” sites
operate the same way. Rather than allow qualified, educated critics,
reviewers, and guides to provide information on where to go, what to
eat, what to see, etc., many people opt, instead, to “Yelp,” thus
putting themselves at the mercy of legions of absolute idiots.
I mean, before you
go calling me an elitist snob, think about it: how many ordinary
people do you know whose advice you would trust implicitly in making
an important decision? Oh, sure, some of your trusted friends and
maybe a few family members are pretty hip and cool, and they'd be
alright to ask. But among the people
you meet in the store or pass on the street, how many? The
spiky-haired dude on the subway who has so many piercings he looks
like he fell face first in a tackle box? The girl with the tattoo of
a snake coming up out of her cleavage and wrapping around her neck?
How about the redneck biker who lives down the street and blows you
out of bed revving up his Harley on Saturday morning? Or the airhead
you got behind in line at the supermarket who had to pull out the
calculator on her phone to total up the two items in her cart? Are
any of these total strangers – emphasis on “strange” – folks
you would want giving you opinions on matters of taste? If you're a
Yelper, they already are.
CNN recently
compiled a bunch of Yelp “reviews” that perfectly illustrate my
point. Here are a few of the more mind-numbing ones for your
consideration.
A Yelper visiting the Louvre: "Each
to their own I guess, but paintings and sculptures just hold little
or no interest for me." Then why did you go to........oh, never
mind. Same question for the brain trust who went to the Metropolitan
Museum of Art in New York and commented, “I refuse to pay any
amount of money to see antiques collecting dust.”
O-o-o-o-k-a-a-ayyyy!
Speaking of experts in antiquities, I
really appreciate the opinion of the learned gentleman from Florida
who went to see the Colosseum in Rome and came away with this
brilliant observation: "Yes, it looks great at night but put
some lights up on that abandoned GM Assembly Plant in Detroit and
you'd have about the same thing without any long visitor lines.”
He's obviously been to a few of Florida's main cultural icons.
While we're in Rome, there's this
highly educated “review” of some minor artist named Michelangelo:
“After seeing so many other free churches' beautiful ceilings, I
was disappointed with the Sistine Chapel's ceiling.” Thanks for the
tip, pal. I'll definitely avoid this blatant tourist trap.
You see where I'm going here? These
people are amazing!
Boredom
is everywhere for these jaded sophisticates. Especially drop-dead
dull places like Yellowstone, as described by a Maryland Yelper:
"I want to tell you that I am not some nature hating guy. I take
my kids hiking. I rock climb. The problem with the place is that it
is dull. [But] If you are in the area for some reason it is worth
dropping by.” Three million visitors a year and this guy says “it
is worth dropping by” if you happen to be in the area with nothing
more exciting to do. He's right up there with the guy from Colorado
who had a great suggestion for improving the “wow” factor at the
Grand Canyon: “As amazing as the views are it is really kind of
boring. Every 500 ft a new vantage point of the same thing: a really
big hole in the ground...What would [be] nice is segway rentals.”
Yeah, that would perk it up for me. People on segways trying to do
Evel Knievel. The boredom these jaded reviewers feel even extends to
war memorials. Witness this witless wonder from Philadelphia's
opinion of the Vietnam War Memorial: “It's a
wall with a bunch of names on it.
I mean NO disrespect but spice it up a bit. It's kinda boring.” How
can it be boring? There are segway tours around there, after all.
I feel like a proctologist. Assholes
everywhere I look.
I guess I'm just being unfair because
my standards aren't high enough. Obviously, aristocratic people from
elite Alpharetta, Georgia who say the Eiffel Tower is "crowded,
overrated, and ugly from up close” operate on a totally different
plane from the rest of us lower beings. That would be the same plane
upon which the San Francisco Yelper lives who offers this sage
comment about another Frenchman's work, this one standing in New York
Harbor: “As a proud American I wanted to love this, but was grossly
underwhelmed... Old Lady Liberty is just that... old.”
And then we come to my favorite
Yelpers; the restaurant “reviewers.” The ones who bring their
elevated palates all the way from Arcadia, California to Copenhagen
to dine at Noma. Of a place with two Michelin stars that has been
ranked as the best restaurant in the world four times by Restaurant
magazine, our California critic had this to say: “One of the
courses literally made me gag but in NOMA, spitting into your napkin
would be a like crime so I swallowed it like a bitter pill.” OMG!
Somebody tell René Redzepi, International Chef of the Year in 2008
and one of TIME magazine's “100 Most Influential People in the
World” in 2012. He'll be devastated.
There's the California girl who
one-starred a restaurant after a five word “review:” “Could use
some vegan options.” My GOD! How shortsighted! How dare this
restaurant not anticipate her personal dietary preferences? I'll bet
they didn't offer “gluten-free” options either, the swine. This
place should be forced out of business and the owners covered in tofu
and ridden out of town on a rail. It's obvious that one star was
generous.
I'm inordinately fond of “reviews”
like the one put up by somebody who looked at the menu posted in the
establishment's window and opted not to eat there because “the food
didn't look good.” Or the ones that trash an eatery because the
“reviewer” didn't like the décor.
And I liked the one slamming a Kosher
place in Boca Raton. The Yelper got all exercised over the fact that
the “bacon” wasn't really bacon and the “American cheese”
wasn't really cheese. They accused the owners of dishonesty and when
the traditional Jewish nature of the place was explained to them,
they huffed and puffed about going to a restaurant, not a synagogue
and finished their one-star “review” with an asinine comment:
“Since when is it a sin to go to a restaurant, be a Christian, and
expect to get the food you ordered? I WILL NEVER RETURN. FOR GODSAKE
PASS THIS ON TO THE FOLKS YOU CARE ABOUT!!!”
And then there was the brilliant Yelper
who one-starred a Jewish restaurant for being closed on a Jewish
holiday.
I've written my fair share of
negativity regarding Olive Garden, but the “review” posted by a
Yelper from Cerritos, California truly humbles my best effort: “A
while back, our little family went with our $50 gift card to the
Cerritos Olive Garden, had some piss-poor salad, some pasta that
tasted like ass, some meat that tasted like ass, and some bread that
was probably good when it was baked, but had gone tough in the last
billion years and now tasted like ass. The service was actually
really good, and I felt bad for the young man who had to carry that
shit around and pretend it was anything but ass. 'Excuse me, sir, how
was your serving of ass? Did you enjoy the ass tonight? Would you
like me to box the leftover ass to take home?' Poor guy. Don't nobody
give us another Olive Garden gift card. I'll fucking kill you.”
Definitively proving that the only ass involved here was the one
writing the “review.”
And Yelpers often write helpful
“reviews” aimed at assisting the common folk who eat at fast-food
places. Like this one for Wendy's: “This place is BAWLIN' yo.
Chicken nuggitz be crispy like you never SEEN. I tasted one and I was
like 'WHAAAAT! Are you serious Wendy?' Mean girls workin the friers,
tho. This one chick wouldn't even let me holla. I was like 'please
you ugly anyway.'” That just says it all, right?
Coffee shops get “reviewed,” too.
“Hmm… Where to start. The joint’s cool until I got banned for
making a pass at one of their barista. Apparently asking their
co-worker if she (the intended) was gay, was a big no-no in their
java world. Oh, and I asked their Asian-looking chick, if she was
Asian. That too; was a violation. Yawn !!”
Yelp gets millions of such submissions
a month. These educated, erudite, intellectual paragons of taste are
the people to whom you are turning for guidance and advice. I can't
wrap my head around it. It's like giving millions of children boxes
of crayons and telling them to create fine art. A few might get
close, but the vast majority will turn out stuff of a quality you
won't even want to display on your refrigerator much less in a
gallery or a museum. Substitute a computer keyboard for the crayons
and you are essentially allowing the same group of people to dictate
where you're going to go, where you're going to stay, what you're
going to eat, and what you're going to see.
I recently stayed at a nice hotel where
I enjoyed a long weekend. The only negative came from a couple of
selfish idiots ensconced across the hall with their duo of yapping
little mutts. The hotel staff was practically apoplectic with apology
and did their very best to ameliorate the inconvenience, which only
lasted until the selfish miscreants checked out after one night. The
little critters were quiet during the overnight hours and the time I
was subjected to their yodeling and yapping was brief because I
didn't spend a lot of time in my room other than overnight. No harm,
no foul. The management offered to relocate me to another room. They
tendered generous discounts. They apologized incessantly and were
extremely grateful that I had brought the matter to their attention.
All because they feared I was going to be one of “those people”
who would take to the Internet and trash the entire hotel because of
an isolated act of ignorance on the part of a pair of fellow
travelers. Hey. The management called their cellphone. They knocked
on the door of the room. And when they finally caught up with the
cretins, they told them to control their dogs. What else could they
do? Call in the local animal shelter's SWAT team with tranquilizers
and cages? So, no, I'm not going to go on Yelp and trash the hotel.
There was nothing wrong with
the hotel. Just with some of the idiots in one of the rooms. But
unfortunately, Yelp brings out the worst in petty whiners and
empowers them to express their footling concerns to the detriment of
businesses already struggling in an uphill battle to please an
increasingly demanding public. The results are often higher prices
and scaled back services as owners and managers strive to provide the
least risky options directed at the lowest common denominator. Thanks
a lot, Yelp.
Bottom line, as
everybody in the service industry will tell you, if you've got a
problem with a hotel, a restaurant, or an attraction, bring it
directly to the attention of management. Don't whine, don't whimper,
don't cry. And, above all, don't Yelp.
So unfair Yelp :(:(:(
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