Look, I’m not going to insult your intelligence here! The title sounds “fancy” but the real point of this blog is to highlight a fact that most of you all have already noticed. And that is, the reviews from critics (gaming, movie etc) no longer aligns with the public’s reception, which begs the question, can they be trusted?
It’s no secret that we are living in a politically charged period. I mean, it’s really ultra charged. Whether it’s being politically correct, calling out bigotry/phobics or leading a social justice charge against something, everything we do or say is motivated by the outside force of politics. Perhaps this is nothing new, and is only now been brought to light thanks to the internet, or it’s a new phenomenon as a result of the net. One thing is clear, people today have motive based on politics. Over the past few months, I have begun to observes a disparity in what the public says in regards to a media or product, vs what critics with a notable reputation and influences are saying.
Something which I’m sure you’ve noticed. For me, it started with Alita: Battle Angel. I thought the movie was great, and gave it a nice review, and many people’s view of the movie aligned with my thoughts. However, I was surprised that a lot of the “traditional” media didn’t like it for one thing or another. I thought nothing of it at first and moved on. However, i started to pay closer attention when I learned WHY the movie was not well received.
The most notable one, and perhaps the striking point that really emphasizes this point is Dave Chappelle’s “Sticks & Stones”. Of course, comedy is subjective and not everyone will find it funny but what I want you to look at is the reception for his show. Universally, it was loved yet it was destroyed by notable critics. You could chuck it up to it being that one case where you expected this to happen. Dave was aiming at everyone, a man on a mission to prove a point, yet only the critics to destroyed him. It’s no secret that the media is currently spinning varies narratives that it wants the public to follow or to “believe in”. At first it used to be discreet, you’d only noticed if you went looking for it but now, now they’ve done us the courtesy of making it clear of their agenda, which brings me to my point. Can we even trust reviews and critics if their judgement is based on clear bias and attempted manipulations?
I guess for me, I’m speaking more on gaming perspective, but this can still be applied to anything. We all go to reviews for a number of reasons. They are the ones who get the product/service first because they have the influence to determine whether people will invest or skip a product. We trust them and expect them to make an objectively fair and critic analysis of a product/service based on what it is trying to achieve, and then advice us, the public on whether it’s worth their money. Naturally, no review can ever be fully objective as the reviewer, by nature, will be subjective to the product or service at hand. Sometimes, we even rely on that if these reviewer are genuine at their work.
Now, things are different. Now, reviewers are deducting points from a service or product if said product/service doesn’t align with their political view or strays too far from it. It sounds absurd, and it is, but when you look at games Call of Duty/Borderlands 3 or the movies like The Joker, you’ll start to see my point. The disparity between Reviewers and the public is now too far apart that is now begs the question, what purpose now do they even serve to the public?
Cleary, the power to influence have gone to this people’s head. They feel like it’s their obligation to enforce a warped sense of justice, to be on the right side of history, instead of just honestly doing their job. This is doing more harm than good for those that do an earnest work. More and more people are beginning to see this problem, is it too late to do anything? We know that these outlets release biased reviews, but we still give them traffic, because we want to see what garbage they’ve written next. We need people to kinda give us a head up on any product or service, but now I can’t even tell who to trust anymore.
I thought I’d share my thoughts on it and see what the rest of the world thinks of this! Is it a big deal or it is something not to be concerned with? Let me know in the comments below.
