Tuesday, January 13, 2009

yelp elite

Tom: "Are you registered on yelp?"

Me: "Yup."

Tom: "Are you elite?"

Me: "No, that would take too much time."

Tom: "But you satisfy two of the three criteria embodied by all yelp elite."

Me: "What, female and ...?"

Tom: "Female, Asian, and angsty. Seriously, go to any yelp restaurant page and read the elite review. You'll see that I'm right. Or in rare cases, the reviewer is a guy, but if you click on his photo and scroll to the right, he'll be standing next to an Asian woman who probably writes all of his reviews for him."

6 comments:

Anonymous said...

Elite Yelp reviews are angsty? I mean, Tom can tell the reviewers are angsty from their reviews? {goes to Yelp} I disbelieve.

Then again, I didn't even know there was an 'elite' status for reviewers; I only go to the site occasionally.

Still, I suspect some selection bias in Tom's sample has crept in.

(worst CAPTCHA yet: "dismsms")

Unknown said...

OMG, this is pretty hilarious. I know a Yelp Elite reviewer and she is an Asian American woman ... not sure I'd describe her as 'angsty' though...

Anonymous said...

But Niniane is not female, Asian or angsty...

She's actually Tom's effeminate older brother, and part of a wealthy Creole family from Concordia Parish in western Louisiana. Skin treatments, minor plastic surgery and years of work with a renowned behavioral psychologist have allowed Niniane to convincingly portray himself as a well-educated, Asian female for the last fifteen years. A vast array of personal pharmaceuticals allows him to perpetuate the Happy Wall--an indelible, damn near insouciant attitude towards life, love, and all things food-related. His entire "career" at Google was nothing more than a well-orchestrated PR campaign of well-placed photo ops and staged appearances. That the entire charade has been so successful is a stunnning testimony to our tendency to believe what we want, in total opposition to the truth of our senses.

Of course, I could be wrong...

:)

N said...

Well, I do like grits.

Anonymous said...

Spoken like someone from the bay area? I'm in Minneapolis, and I looked for several Yelp elite, no asians: Mark, Jaymi, Lindsay, Maddy, Allison, etc.

DF

Anonymous said...

As do I, but only when it occurs in the same sentence as Natalie Portman...