Reviews have become an integral part of modern decision making. They originated in newspapers in the early 1900s reviewing films but moved online in the late 1990s/early 2000s with websites like RateItAll allowing regular users to review products. This helped popularize the angry video game nerd web series in 2004 which brought comedic game reviews to YouTube. Now generations rely on unboxing and product review videos for purchase decisions over paid reviews. Research shows over 90% of consumers are influenced by online reviews in their purchasing.

1. Critical context
Criticism and reviews – how reviews are integral to
modern life.
By jamescooper-abel18/11/2020
Reviews are vital in decision making for people in the modern day as most people will
look at a review of a product, hotel, or person before either buying, staying, or going
to or hiring someone.
“Reviews can be important for organisations in terms of promoting a
performance or say grant applications which are increasingly important in
today’s economic climate.” (Maxim Boon 6 May 2016) within this essay I am going
to look at how reviews started and how they have changed over the years, how
reviewers set their reviews out and how reviews have an influence on a products sale
and how those reviews help improve a product.in order to do this I will first explore the
history of reviews from the beginning to today discussing changes that have
happened over the years, then move onto looking at some reviewers and how they
set out their reviews of different products from toy reviewers to film and video game
reviewers to understand how a genre of a product can affect how a review is set out,
then finally looking into how reviews influence the profits of a product but also the
companies that made said products as reviews are important as,
“Reviews not only have the power to influence consumer decisions but can
strengthen a company’s credibility. Reviews have the power to gain customer
trust, and they encourage people to interact with the company. Customer
interaction ultimately leads to improved profits for businesses.” (Jill Anderson
Nov 27, 2018)
And most reviews you find can be found online done by consumer who have bought a
product from a company and give their opinion on whether it is positive or negative
as, Consumers aren’t restricted online and can share their experiences as they
want to. They are free to say truthfully what they thought about the product and
what they believe is essential for others to know before making a buying
decision.
So, throughout this essay I will look at the importance of reviews and how they have
an influence not only consumer but the companies that provide product or services to
said consumers by first looking at how the medium of online reviews started, then
look at present online reviewers and how they set their reviews out and finally the
statistics of reviews and the effect they have on consumers.
Where it all began
Before online reviews became the main medium for reviews of product it first started
in the early 1900s with the start of the film industry as many used reviewing as a way
to break into film related jobs such as screen writers or a director “something that

2. hasn’t really changed over the last century, as it is just as prevalent now for
film school students to blog about their career exploits and cinematic musings
online in order to increase their chances of being noticed.” (Superadmin May
14, 2014),
and by the 1930s when film was becoming mainstream many reviews were journalist
diverted from other sections of the newspaper until there were dedicated movie
journalist like Otis Ferguson and James Agee that would review movies and wright
their opinions on the movies in the newspaper in which when television become
more mainstreams reviewers like Siskel and Ebert’s would take the reviewer spot
light with their show Siskel and Ebert’s show At the Movies in which the two would
watch a movie and tell viewers of their show about the movies they watched and
their thought on it until,
The medium of online reviews first began in 1999 which would change they the way
reviews were made with the creation of the websites RateItAll.com, Deja.com,
Epinions.com which “set in motion a social trend called “online reviews” that
influences nearly every type of consumer purchase today including choosing
a doctor.” (EMPATHIQ may 22 2015) which would allow regular people to give their
opinions on products, movies or people and by the year 2000 all three websites
accumulated over around 1,146,201 individual reviews up until around 2004 in which
the website RateMDs.com was created which focused primarily on reviewing doctors
in which it had around 320 rating in it dictionary but by 2007 that number had risen to
534,999 ratings.
It was also during 2004 that one man would change the way reviews were presented
forever by the name of james Rolfe or his alias or character the angry video game
nerd who would start the angry Nintendo nerd which would later change to angry
video game nerd to avoid copyright with the company Nintendo,
in which at the suggestion of a longtime friend to post videos which he had first made
to be joke between him and his friends would post the video he made of himself as
his character doing comedic reviews of poorly made video games,
were instead of focusing mainly informing his audience about the game he reviewed
rather he focused more on the comedy of his reviews which involved foul mouth
comedic commentary and skits of the poorly made video game he reviewed in which
he would post the video on his own website and the eventually emerging streaming
platform youtube,

3. in which it would gain a cult following as many trusted him as he was “just quite
simply a gamer he was the one who introduced me and I think many of us to
the world of online video as a medium for game discussion and comedy”
(Matthew Patrick dec 14 2013),
or to put it simply “he was a pioneer of the field” (Matthew Patrick dec 14 2013)
of game reviews bringing the genre into the medium review circle and inspiring
others to do their own comedic review series on their favorite mediums with their
own styles,
which has affected who people will go to for reviews as nowadays people look more
towards regular people reviewers like jangbricks for Lego, Chris stuckman for movies
and some call me johnny for more modern video game releases as their opinions
feel more honest and true than someone who is paid by a company to reviews
something.
And with the rising popularity of YouTube and online reviews one medium of review
became very popular and that was unboxing videos in which a reviewer would take a
product out of it packaging and would show it to their audience in which they will use
the product or play with depending if it’s a toy or not to see if it fulfills it purpose and
is worth others buying with two generational groups those being millennials and
generation z relying on these types of online reviews to decide whether or not a
product is worth buying or not,
this shows the effect of online reviews have had on consumers as now two
generation rely more on online reviews done by regular people than someone payed
to review a product as “The level of trust is higher, even if the creator is
affiliated with the brand in some way, than hearing the same review or
unboxing from the brand itself.” (Sponsokit Mar 9, 2018).
bibleography
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