RIP Most Useful, Most Funny, and Most Cool Yelp reviews 2008-2018
I almost had my Black Elite 10-year anniversary badge… I didn’t make it. It’s so difficult to maintain a long-term relationship with something that you have to give more than you receive in return.
Being an Elite, then Gold Elite, almost a Black Elite, for the course of 12 years made me realize that I should be getting money for writing.
I was upset that as the years of my elite-hood progressed into the late 2010s, I would get accepted less and less for the social invitations that I RSVP’ed to. When I was first Elite in 2008, I could go to everything and get free sake mugs too. By 2012, I was going to parties and dinners all over Los Angeles. I got full-course vegan dinners and alcoholic beverages at swanky bars. By 2016-2017, I received no response to half of the Elite invitations I tried to go to. Katie Burbank, who was the manager at the time, would prioritize the novelty of newness (new members) over the novelty of a sardonic Yelp review. Most of that Yelp from the lowly red Elites was saccharine crap. Then I stopped with Yelp and decided to take over my own Yelp and host my own reviews.
There was a social aspect to Yelp that wasn’t great. I never made a friend from Yelp -outside- of Yelp. It wasn’t really a way to produce social overtures like social media and dating sites could be. You would chat with people by leaving notes next to the “You’re Hot,” “You’re Cool” and “You’re Funny” compliments back and forth. There was nothing that really held Yelp friends together besides the sharing of funny reviews we wrote.
I remember part of my journey with Yelp was presenting it at UC Santa Cruz, which was incredibly fun. Not. It was criticized by these asshole white Marxists at UC Santa Cruz as propagating the fetish to consumerism. A lot of my day-to-day experiences are going out to businesses and it’s a way I can remember parts of my life beyond the great or crappy food or um ambience.
