Epinions as Video Game, Cult or Cybersex: Three Paradigms of Addiction
Feb 14 '03 (Updated Feb 15 '03)
The Bottom Line In honor of turning 50 (reviews out), I consider three unhealthy Epinions models. And then I protest my innocence. Take with a bottle of soy sauce, and then spit.
We all know that the main function of Epinions is to provide consumers with honest, unsolicited and unbiased ratings of products. Surely, the vast majority of site members write reviews toward the goal of helping others make informed decisions, meanwhile perfecting themselves as writers— both unquestionably noble objectives. This article, however, has nothing to do with these fair and wholesome souls who are joined together in a mutually beneficial and socially constructive community. No, this is about the darker side of Epinions— the addicts, social misfits, the loners, losers and onanistic self-lovers.
Whether you are new at Epinions or have garnered great experience here, the following Epinions Paradigms offer cautionary tales as well as the pitfalls that potentially await even those with sterling intentions. (Incidentally, I wouldn’t be surprised at all if another member had already made some of the following comparisons, but I swear on my copy of Finnegans Wake that I never read them.)
1. Epinions as Video Game
Object: Submit writings (reviews and otherwise) in order to impress people enough to rate you highly (game levels 1-3). Small points are gained from winning higher ratings (Helpful, Very Helpful, and the elusive Most Helpful), and deducted for earning lower ones (Somewhat Helpful, Not Helpful, and the dreaded Off Topic.) Merely accruing hundreds or even thousands of high ratings on individual submissions is only the first level of the game. Beginner’s play.
The intermediate levels (4-6) concern getting as many people to trust you, adding you to their Web of Trust. Here is where some of the real gaming skills and strategizing come into play. It’s not enough to merely write excellent reviews. You’ll get noticed, for sure, and a few people will WOT you (add you to their Trust list), but you will never break past Level 3 if you don’t simultaneously read and rate other gamers’ reviews. The game is one of survival, and those who go it alone will eventually die or languish in obscurity. Those who form alliances (yeah, like in the "reality" show) will fare far better. Rating other members will attract them to you. But careful: most gamers are aware of the tricks. If you add someone to your WOT (in game terms, WOT them) figuring you will get them to WOT you back, you may succeed or the whole plan will backfire. ADVISORS and other smart players may notice your strategizing, and BLOCK you for insincerity.
If you play the game well enough, you will pass on to levels 7-10, the Expert levels. Here, the main objective is to score HATS: Advisor and/or Top Reviewer. Having a hat will increase your readership and the likelihood others will WOT you. You will also have more POWER and weight accorded to your rating, as long as your hat in a category remains on your head. Once you win a hat, however, you must fight to keep it. Slip up in your duties or devotion to the game and you will lose your temporary powers. Play your cards right, put in thousands of hours, and you may be awarded with CATEGORY LEAD, but don’t count on it; you are up against thousands of other players, and the competition for two spots in each category is extremely tough.
GAME OVER: The game is over either when you elect to disengage from the mothership of your own accord, or when you do something so royally wrong as to offend the Epinions GODS and get kicked off. Plagiarize, insult or malign another gamer, use profanity (and get caught), and you might find your ACCOUNT TERMINATED.
Pros: The game is fun and offers writers instant gratification for their efforts. Put up drivel and poor reviews, and you will be blocked, ignored, NH’ed and slammed into mercy. But submit good writing and win instant rating points, WOT points, and possibly HAT points.
Cons: Video games are potentially addictive and therefore antisocial, despite the fact that one is putatively interacting with a community of gamers. Intervention from friends and family may be necessary to cure the addiction.
2. Epinions as Cult
A secret cabal of insiders, the CULT LEADERS, lies in wait for the unwitting and hapless soul to stumble into its snares. The promise of EARNING MONEY for your efforts lures the unsuspecting citizen into the cult. Friendly cult ADVISORS (higher-ups in the strict hierarchy of the Epinions cult) encourage your first, fledgling efforts at reviews, no matter how lame. Advisors drop solicitous and affirmative comments on your submissions, with the symbolism of these notes thinly veiled: your efforts, all your time as a cult member are for the greater good and financial gain of the LEADERS. How exactly they benefit is a mystery (do they win a residual from companies when your Epinions help sell their products?), and the cause of speculation and laughter at the site’s water coolers, where ADVISORS and TOP REVIEWERS bask in the fluorescent glow of the envious and teeming masses of lower cult members, striving for recognition within the cult.
Pros: The promise of ascending higher and higher within the chain of command is elusive but possible, and the results are lucrative: CULT ADVISORS and other members wearing the uniform HATS take home bigger pay checks than the brainwashed CULT MEMBERS whose main job is to type as many reviews as possible for the glory of the LEADERS.
Cons: Cults are potentially addictive and therefore antisocial, despite the fact that one is putatively interacting with a community of cult members. Financial ruin may result from avoidance of more stable income. Intervention from friends and family may be necessary to deprogram members.
3. Epinions as Cybersex
According to Freud, artistic creation is sublimation for unfulfilled libidinous desires, in other words, you paint because you can’t (or wont or don’t) have sex. Writing, painting, all creation is a substitute for procreation. A (false) promise of immortality is accorded both kinds of creation: have real sex = make babies, continue your genetic line and the survival of the species. Have sublimated sex = make art, win fame in life and be remembered by future generations after your own death.
How Epinions Cybersex works: Given that writing is a form of sublimated sexual drive, each review on a product is measured for its prowess by anonymous sexual partners in a giant orgy of cybersex. You read other MEMBERS and they read your MEMBER. You rate them on their members’ PERFORMANCE as they will rate you on yours. Insufficient member-review length or duration (PREMATURE EJACUALTION or else shooting your prose in tiny, adolescent spurts) will earn you derision and scorn from your sexual partners. Copying another member or non-member’s moves will also not go over well with more sensitive and alert partners.
The interface is curious. Just as in real sex, where, for example, a married couple might be thinking of others while they engage in intercourse (essentially, two people masturbating with the unwitting aid of the other), exhibitionists can display their member profile and reviews to scores of voyeurs, seeming to engage in interactive sex while really only thinking of themselves, hoping to spread their literary genes across the Internet and garner a small, if fleeting reputation as a great lover. And so, under this paradigm Epinions can be seen as a healthy, hippified orgy of flower children engaging in interactive and mutually respectful intercourse, OR, as that married coupled locked in eyes-closed onanistic solipsisms. Or both of these at once.
Pros: Expose yourself to thousands of other members. Have mutually satisfying sex with multitudes of anonymous partners, free of any risk of disease. Write well, and earn literary fame and even get your member "performance" rated highly. Enjoy the power of rating other members’ performances.
Cons: Cybersex is potentially addictive and therefore antisocial, despite the fact that one is putatively interacting with a community of partners. Intervention from friends and family may be necessary to pull you away, kicking and screaming, from your computer.
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Author Disclaimer!
OK, folks. In the effort of gaining a laugh or two, I’ve put my Epinions reputation on the line, risking being associated with any of the foregoing paradigms. Hey, I’ll admit to a little healthy addiction, but golfing? flossing? hand-modeling? I vehemently deny partaking in any of these and all other mentioned sick and depraved addictions, and pray that my kind readers remain perpetually free of these diseased and dastardly debasements of de site. Now go forth and multiply!
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Epinions.com ID:
trust12345
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 - Top 1000 |
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Member: John Stone
Location: $24, N.Y.
Reviews written: 300
Trusted by: 189 members
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