It is crazy the things that you can review. According to Yelp, people can review anything from prisons and border crossings to national parks and the moon. Everyone has opinions. However, reviews only matter to a certain extent. Realistically, they are just words from a few people that will have a different opinion to you.
Before purchasing something, perhaps a new pair of headphones from Amazon, people scroll down to check that the reviews are positive. This is helpful for those who don’t want to waste their money. In fact, 84% of consumers will trust reviews as much as personal recommendations as long as they meet their requirements. Not wasting money is the main reason to consider reviews. Plenty of people dictate their purchases around the provided reviews to save their time and money.
However, there are many reasons why these reviews do not matter. For one, corporations can generate AI reviews that bring up the ratings. So, reviews may be inaccurate. The risk of wasting your money occurs every time you purchase anything. The problem is that many people will assume that if a product has good reviews, then it must be a good product. Thus, their money will not be wasted. This is untrue since everyone has their own opinion and experience with the product. The reviews may claim that a pair of headphones are the best headphones known to mankind, however someone may buy a pair a think they are utter garbage. So, product reviews do not matter.
Conversely, for films, reviews do matter for the producers. Good reviews help the box office performance. More people went to see Star Wars: The Force Awakens in 2015, because of the positive reviews. This helped the film obtain more money meaning more Star Wars films could be made (not that we need any more). When your job is on the line, reviews do matter. Especially since that movie received over $2 billion worldwide.
This is not to say that enjoyment of the film is guaranteed. Many people came out of that movie wishing that The Force had stayed asleep. Therefore, it depends on who you are in relation to the movie as to whether the reviews really count for anything. In fact, how much someone enjoys a film can be based on their mood. Let’s say you are having a movie night with friends. One person may fancy watching a romantic comedy, whereas another person may want to watch a horror movie. If you watch a film that you are not in the mood to watch, then overall enjoyment decreases.
This would be the same for a film critic entering a theatre. The screen is playing La La Land, but they do not want to be bombarded with choreographed numbers repeatedly. So, they tell everyone it was repetitive and annoying. Bad review. Bad performance. All because they just wanted to watch a Disney movie. Reviews are made by humans. Human moods are unpredictable. Therefore, reviews do not matter.
Alternatively, reviews are of genuine interest to many. For instance, when you finish a book, people tend to go onto Goodreads and see other people interpretation of certain characters and build their opinion around other people’s. Perhaps someone had finished Animal Farm by George Orwell and did not understand why it was so accepted that animals could talk. That person would turn to the reviews to uncover the metaphor of animalistic behaviour of humans in a capitalist society and realise its genius. Maybe reviews do matter since it helps people understand books better? Although, this would be the exception.
In general, reviews do not actually matter. If you want to know what a product is like, or how good a production really is you should go and buy that product and go and see that movie. Reviews may help, yes. But first hand experience is the only way you will know what something is like.
