You Sunk My Social Networking Battleship

Step 1: Post about Yelp. Step 2: Realize that Philadelphia Will Do covert operative Chrissmari will most certainly post about it on Yelp. Step 3: Profit.

Someone on the PW blog called Yelpers out and, suddenly, there are arguments going on. In my time on Yelp, I haven’t seen any Philly Yelpers fight. I’m sorry to see that something as minor as a blog entry has caused tension.

Some guy also sent this to me as an email:

I speak for most Yelp Elite member when I say that we were all writing countless reviews (good and bad) well before we were invited to an Elite party that had free food and drinks. We care a lot about any reputation we’ve built. We don’t do it for money or free drinks. [...] I suppose you did your job and got a few more page views for your blog and got people talking. Maybe next time it’ll be for something a little more insightful.

Another user on the board wrote: “Meh, I’m not allowed to be an Elite Yelper since I am under 18, but I didn’t let this blog phase me.” Exactly. Out of the mouths of babes.

If smoking and Elite Yelping are both restricted until you’re 18, does that mean they both do the same amount of damage to your health?

Philadelphia Yelp in Philadelphia Weekly Blog [Yelp]

Elitists Whine About Lack Of Free Stuff

The other night, Yelp — a trendy Web. 2.0 review site — held an event at the Mexican Post near Love Park for its “Elite” users, a group no doubt infinitely cooler than me and my regular user status.

This was a dumb move, because Mexican Post sucks. And, as such, Mexican Post has now received a ton of angry reviews on Yelp from people at the event.

Their complaints, though, weren’t limited to the regular shittiness of Mexican Post. No, the main complaints from users were that Yelp users weren’t given enough free stuff. Oh, man, how dare they! The comments range from “What a way to fuck yourself in the ass MP” to “we were expecting to be lavished as most *ahem* ALL host-places do” to “I got two chicken wings. That’s it.” Most of the posts were at roughly the same level of seriousness you’d use for a doctoral dissertation.

Of course, people love to complain with a ridiculous amount of seriousness (especially on the Internet). And there’s nothing wrong with complaining about shitty free food and drinks. But this Yelp user sort of sums up the whole idea of a review site holding events at bars (naturally, it’s in the form of an Internet meme, itself from a cartoon to begin with):

the deal is simple:

Step 1: Mexican Post, you give us lots and lots of your food and alcohol for one night.

Step 2: If the food, drink, and atmosphere are amazing, we will return the favor with lots and lots of equally amazing reviews.

Step 3: Profit and / or world domination for you. Hangover for us.

You blew it, Mexican Post, you blew it.

If you give Yelp free drinks and promotion, you get great reviews on the site. While Mexican Post is certainly stupid for giving bad service to people who were going to go on the Internet afterwards and complain about it, it’s … oh, hell, I’m dangerously close to making a direct point here, and it’s as stupid and obvious as “don’t trust people on the Internet, especially ones who get free shit to write positive reviews.” I’ll stop. Sorry.

Side note: The Yelp post has a Chrissmari sighting!

Semi-related note: If you enjoy awful blogs, hilarious commenters on the Internet and more of the dead seriousness you can only get from people online, be sure to check out this comment thread on BoingBoing. There is so much hilarity involved in it I feel bad having to pick just one awesome comment: “This is a really interesting situation. It reminds me of the Judith Miller portion of the Plame Affair.”

Mexican Post [Yelp]