Review Crusaders
Not everyone writes reviews. This is ground we’ve trodden down quite well.
We’re busy people! We have lives, cares, worries. Maybe kids, too! Shoot, do we? I hope not. But even if we don’t, we’re still super busy, and the ONLY WAY we’re gonna write a review is if we have some fierce feelings that need to be expressed.
Let’s say Veronica suggested the perfect dish, drink, and dessert, and scored a balloon for that child that seems to follow you everywhere, calling you “mom” or “dad” or whatever (you aren’t really listening). Well dang, you just know you’re going on Yelp or Google or Facebook even, and dropping a review to let everyone know just how dope Veronica’s service is.
Or maybe, hang on, here’s a scenario: you’re in a pool hall, the lights are low, and you’re just one game away from showing this out of work background dancer that you really DO know your way around a cue. You’re getting ready to use the chalk to outline his corpse! But then the manager turns the lights up and announces last call at the bar, an hour before they’re supposed to close. There’s not enough time to rake has-been go-go dancer over the coals in an hour! You want to make him lose his shirt, and not in a way that he’d be okay with! Crummy service! Bad review! Don’t hustle people here!
But as it happens, most experiences - and most of us - fall somewhere in the middle. Okay to good times enjoyed by okay to good people. And so we’re not compelled to even bother with a review. Even great or awful experiences might not draw reviews out of us, if we don’t want to dissect a great memory or spend one second more on a frustrating one.
Then, there are crusaders.
The Heroes We Deserve
Any review can be seen as a public service. Our fellow shopper - someone who has walked the path already, had their time and money spent - they come to us and share their knowledge, so that we will be protected when we pull out our own wallets.
If just writing a review makes you a hero, then there must be a special designation for people who don’t just leave their reviews, but leave them in multiple places. They shout from every rooftop, because they know we live in different neighborhoods, and they need to spread the good (or bad) word.
They don’t just take the time to leave a review, they take the time to manage multiple accounts and to leave their words posted as many places as possible.
These are people like Kasia, who wrote these two reviews - on Amazon, then Goodreads (which Amazon owns) - for the novel This Rage of Echoes:
You can see this is pretty much a copy/paste job, but there was still A YEAR between when she reviewed it on Amazon and when she took her screed to Goodreads. But having read this book myself, I couldn’t agree more. If I took the initiative to review it, I’d shout on all platforms as well, though I might be a bit more like Balf, leaving these two reviews for Boost Oxygen Natural Energy Breathing - 10 L can on the SAME DAY:
And they are different reviews! While some points are repeated, these reviews were composed individually. Balf is a reviewer who obviously really cares.
Who knows, maybe these people are just too bored, or they’re a little crazy thinking that people MUST know what they have to say. But hey, here I am, having found their reviews in two separate places, and that drives home their points all the more. There’s a certain power in repetition, and these two have harnessed it. True good-doers, true heroes, true review crusaders.
