Oversharing in Reviews
We are social creatures, we humans, whether by evolution, choice, or pure bad luck. But we’ve passed the point where we seek one another out for our own survival and graduated to the point of seeking out each other’s approval.
Can you imagine little Teddy Caveman showing off his cave paintings, then sitting alone when it turned out no one liked them? He cries into the soft loamy cave floor, uses his tears to make a paste of the dirt, then paints some more, letting everyone know – through a series of moody and intricate grunts – that his literal tears are in this work and he doesn’t even care if they like it or not.
Little Teddy’s family asks him to go out and catch a rabbit for once, but he just paints a rabbit and questions the meaning of everything. The small tribe starts to label Teddy as the odd one. They avoid him. And though he is ignored, he never stops painting.
Little Teddy could be you, could be me. Maybe we aren’t so different from our biological ancestors after all, because these days we share a whole lot about ourselves online.
Social media is a buzzing hive of busy bees, each one wanting the other to see the great work they’re doing. Or how hard the work has been lately. Or how cute the aphids are. We share thoughts, rants, opinions, pictures, and all sorts of personal information and data about our lives, how we live, where we live, what we’re living FOR (the weekend, obviously).
But we all acknowledge or at least register that social media is a place of oversharing. We know we are exposing details of our lives, but there are security measures, you can choose to only share with friends, and yada. Yada. YADA.
What we don’t often think about as much is where else we might be spreading our information online. You know where this blog is being written, you already read the title, so you know where this is going. Reviews. It’s in reviews. We may mindlessly share personal data on Facebook, Instagram, and Twitter, but we don’t even give a passing thought to all the information we create, then readily share in our user reviews.
Let’s start by mentioning that there are many people online, and people of many ages. All that’s to say that there are plenty of people who don’t have pseudonyms, gamertags, nom de plumes, or handles. There are a great many who use nothing but their 100% real name for any account and email address they can sign up for, and that means anyone stumbling upon their reviews knows exactly what they’re buying, where they’re shopping, what they’re eating, where they vacation, and what they think of all of the above. And this is without having to stalk someone through Facebook.
And that’s where some bigger problems can develop.
Let’s be real for just a moment before moving on, and touch on the concept of oversharing. I think we’d all know what it is if we saw it, but opinions and tastes can differ. The same outfit might be too revealing for one person, yet casual and everyday for another, the same way a conversation about bowel movements might be impolite dinner conversation at Thanksgiving, but perfectly acceptable among your med school buddies. To say someone is “oversharing” is to say that there is some unambiguous and universally known level of sharing that is acceptable, and that’s just not the case. Some people are more open than others, some people are more sensitive, but a key point is that in all these recent examples, the sharing (or baring) was a conscious choice. What we put in reviews might not necessarily be.
Sure, yes, if you’re writing it and posting it, you gave it some thought. You consented to a wall of legalese when you created your account. You’re doing this for Yelp Elite for Pete’s sake, you want it to be seen.
Still. Whether it’s because posting a review feels and looks so different from posting a status update that we’re blind to what we’re revealing, or whether we’re just A+ reviewers who always want to keep it honest and 100, we share a lot of things in reviews that we wouldn’t as easily post on our walls or to our feeds.
Everett D Smith wasn’t satisfied with his purchase of the 1-Pack Men's Gray Classic Regular Absorbency Washable Reusable Incontinence Briefs Medium, writing “One Star – It leaked out the side.” I don’t say this to make easy old man peepee jokes. That’s not the point today. The point is, we all know more about Everett than he knows about us. And that was nothing.
While she didn’t use her full name, Amazon review carrie told us all about the experience she had with the Ben Belle Abs Stimulator Hips Trainer,Electronic Backside Muscle Toner,Smart Training Wearable Buttock Toner Trainer for Men Women. She wrote: At the beginning I loved this product, it wasn’t until day 3 that the adhesive stopped working so I tried the suggested trick of putting a thong over the devise but I noticed that it started feeling like someone was flipping my behind with a rubber band. Thank goodness my husband happened to catch a glimpse of the tush because 😱 the device had caused what can only be described as circles dead tissue, most likely where the electrical current was not getting a good connect to my skin and burning deep into the tush (see pic) . I did feel like it would have been a great product if they went with a higher quality sticky pad.
In case you missed the part where she said “see pic,” she said SEE PIC. While referring to burn marks that this contraption left on her “tush!” And there WAS a picture. It’s there! For anyone to see. Including the husband, who we now know takes a peek every now and again.
On Yelp, I can figure out which places you frequent by seeing where you check in the most. Google Reviews will give me a map of the places you’ve been, letting me know what your stomping grounds are, maybe what kind of car you drive too. I might happen upon a review you left after throwing your kid a birthday party at the roller rink. I can keyword search to find any review that even mentions the word, and it’s all there at my fingertips.
Now, there is a lot of information out there on each of us that is publicly available and not at all creepy to find. But we are putting a lot more out there than we realize.
Maybe it’s a good thing. After all, present-day anthropologists are glad there were so many Teddy Cavemen out there, capturing images of their lives and preserving them for us, whether anyone cared or liked them or noticed. The difference is, it’s a lot easier these days for someone to notice.
