1

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).
Reviewers today
As discussed in subheading one YouTube has become the main media platform for
product reviews as it is easy to find a review of a product you intend to purchase but
want an opinion to see if it’s worth buying or not by simply typing in the search bar the
product you are looking a review for and the website will show you a multitude of
video made by many creators with their own unique different styles of reviewing a
product, one of these channels being Jan bricks which has been around since 2010
in which it is a Lego review channel which focuses on reviewing Lego sets released
by the Lego group over the years from star wars to Lego city in which the video are
set out in a formal format in which jang will go over a brief overview of the set the
going into detail about the set showing off how it works and how its meant to be
played with then going over what he liked and disliked and what could’ve been
improved if the set is worth the price it is being sold at, and this reviewer has quite the
influence on consumers as currently his subscriber count being 1.25 million meaning
one million and a quarter people look to this reviewer to see if Lego product are worth
purchasing or not.
another unique reviewer that we can look at is Chris stuckmann who is a movie
reviewer in which his format is a quick and simple 5 minute review of a movie he
watched in which he discusses his opinions of the movie in more of a way friend

4. would tell a friend about a movie without ruining the plot of the movie if that person
wants to go see that movie for themselves in which he discusses what he like about
the movies what he felt could have been improved on and whether or not it is worth
watching or not and this reviewer has quite the influence on consumers as his
subscriber count has 1.84 million subscriber’s meaning nearly two million people
watch his videos to see whether it is worth buying a ticket to see it in theatre’s or buy
it on DVD or not watch it at all and save their money.
A third unique reviewer we can look at is somecallme johnny who is a video game
reviewer who video run time is for his video can vary depending on the video game
he’s reviewing and his video format Is very laid back and comedic in which he
discusses the basic of the game from its plot to its game play and how it feels whilst
cutting back and forth between him and footage of the game being played and the
way he talks to his viewers is the equivalent of and friend talking to a friend about a
game they’ve played with the influence he has on consumers being smaller than the
other reviewers we have looked at but still a respectable amount of influence on
consumer with his subscriber count being 389k meaning nearly half a million
consumers go to this channel to see if a game is worth buying and playing or not.
with this we see a common pattern as each of these reviewers present their reviews
more casually than formally as we see they discuss the product they’re reviewing
stating what is expected from a review the product itself and how it fits into the roll it is
made for the pros and cons but they give their own personal opinions about the
product with their reviews taking place in their homes instead of some expensive
studio like Siskel and Ebert’s in which they reviewed and talked about movies they
watch in a studio with a entire set crew recording and editing their review into a
coherent review as they have to shoot the video on their own getting help sometimes
and editing the recorded footage into a review all on their own which Is the case for
other online reviewers as well which creates more trust in the consumer as it create
as down to earth trust as if we were to say you were looking for a job interview and
you asked two different people say someone rich who owns a company and someone
who works for a different company but is an employee rather than the owner of the
company they work for and asked what job you should go for, you would trust the
employee rather than the business owner as they have more experience what it is
like working for a company such as working conditions, pay and holidays so what
they say is more creditable as the owner could misinform you about what the working
conditions are like, the pay and the holidays you get to make the job sound appealing
but then to find out that it was a mistake and is a terrible job to work at, which is
similar to reviewer as most people will trust online reviewer who have bought the
product and do reviews on their own rather than highly paid reviewers who has been
given the product for free and could be paid to say positive thing about the product to
make it sound more appealing which is why online reviewer like the one we have
discussed have become more prevalent in today’s media climate as now people trust
regular peoples reviews of product rather than professional reviewer who are paid.
bibleography

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