Line #72 Main/ReviewsAreTheGospel


1	->''"Bah! Creator/RogerEbert gave that zero stars. Therefore, I hate it."''
2	-->-- '''WebVideo/TheCinemaSnob''' on ''Theatre/RosencrantzAndGuildensternAreDead'' (1990), ''WebVideo/BrowsHeldHigh''
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6
7	For whatever reason, gamers tend to, on the whole, place more stock in [[{{Review}} professional reviews]] of works than fans of any other medium. Only second to news, reviews of the newest games are the main attraction of most gaming sites and magazines. In fact, review scores are just as likely to be used as personal opinions in UsefulNotes/ConsoleWars debates or to argue which of the newest {{killer app}}s is the best.
8
9	Of course, while there's nothing wrong in placing some stock in the opinions of others, review scores shouldn't be regarded as authoritative, simply because reviewers are, like everyone else, human beings with their own personal tastes and preferences. Not to mention that reviewers are [[FourPointScale not exactly always trustworthy]]. Worse still, professional reviewers are often just people with a job, and usually view gaming as a burden in order to complete their jobs, instead of a genuine hobby. Naturally, this causes them to often have different tastes than ordinary gamers, and enjoying the product is at best only a small part of their rating and at worst isn't even considered.
10
11	On the surface, one could say there's some logic behind all this -- after all, purchasing a $60 game is a far riskier endeavor than buying a $15-20 book or a $10 movie ticket, so it makes sense that many people might look to ''something'', even if it is a bad source. However, over-reliance on reviews is just as common in areas where software piracy is ubiquitous. Another reason, perhaps, is that video games as a medium demand more time and attention from us than most other entertainment forms, so most of us need to be discriminatory in the games we play. It's worth mentioning that reviews are not without biases. What the critic finds to be SoOkayItsAverage, ''you'' might find awesome because it is practically tailored to your tastes and desires in a game; and the polar opposite happens as well, often leading to HypeBacklash, CriticalDissonance and ItsPopularNowItSucks situations.
12
13	Culturally speaking, this deference has existed for awhile, as aftershocks from MediaNotes/TheGreatVideoGameCrashOf1983. One of the big problems of first and second generation video games was the general absence of any detailed information about games. This leads to many upset consumers who had to guess whether a game was any good and quickly became frustrated to discover they just put a lot of cash down for a PortingDisaster or imitation of an arcade game they thought they liked. This is the reason for the "Nintendo Seal of Quality" -- which wasn't supposed to mean "awesome game" so much as "playable game" and "Nintendo has licensed this game to be sold" (the first and second generations also had games that were not licensed by Creator/{{Atari}}, which was part of the problem as they never had to go through quality control -- quality here meaning "playable"). Unfortunately, many seem to see reviews as the only means to obtain their information, even though far more objective outlets exist, many of which can not be bought like professional reviewers can.
14
15	This mentality often hurts some works when people believe a reviewer's word to be law. Oftentimes, reviewers will become rather jaded and tend to be a tad cold towards works that they don't particularly ''love'' years down the road. Not to mention, some reviewers often have a BiasSteamroller, which can also cause them to take points off of a work merely because they have certain pet peeves, or add points because they like the franchise. In some of the worse cases, this leads to people [[PraisingShowsYouDontWatch Praising Shows They Don't Watch]] or [[ComplainingAboutShowsYouDontWatch Complaining About Shows They Don't Watch]]. An even worse case than that is when someone starts an argument with another because the latter likes or dislikes something that a reviewer has given a different judgment to, and the former does not have an opinion of their own but is making judgments based on what the reviewer said.
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17	The outcome overall is that games will sometimes cater to what developers believe will get them a good review score instead of what fans will like. After all, what is the point in making games people will enjoy if the reviewers will hate them and no one will buy games that the reviewers hate irrespective of their actual worth or potential?
18
19	This mentality began to decline, at least in regards to video games, after companies like Creator/{{Ubisoft}} were found to be attempting to fix reviews through threats of withholding the games or money in advertisement unless reviewers gave a positive review. Because it is a ''business'', reviewers are often very wary about angering the people who are paying a large portion of their salaries (ex. through advertisements). Hints of a shift began with websites and magazines saying things similar to, for instance, "7 is the lowest we can give this without Creator/{{Sony}} pulling advertisements". The withholding of advertisements and review copies of games has been mentioned before. For instance, after the ''VideoGame/KaneAndLynch'' and ''Franchise/AssassinsCreed'' fiascoes, the developers felt that the reviews were not fair considering the advertisement money that they had contributed. ''Magazine/NintendoPower'' was also known when it was around for its refusal to criticize any game that was developed or published by Creator/{{Nintendo}}.
20
21	Of course, the ''reason'' that publishers want good reviews in the first place is not out of any sense of pride but due to some correlation between good reviews and good sales. Quick! How many people among you, your friends, and your family would be willing to buy a game that rates 3 out of 10 with the reviewer panning the gameplay? How many would at least be willing to look at and consider a game that got 9 out of 10 with the reviewer praising the gameplay? For developers, reviews may be much more a point of pride but even then, developers will worry about the monetary aspect if only because they risk losing their jobs if their game flops too hard.
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23	Also said to be a phenomenon among fans of live theatre. Indeed, reviews can influence the act itself over time, replacing actors or modifying scenes slightly.
24
25	The exploit of this mentality is also a common marketing practice. Books often make a big point of showing that they are a bestseller or are written by the author of a bestseller or quote positive reviews on the back, movies run trailers after release that say something along the lines of, "Critics agree -- this movie rocks", and video game advertisements often show scores from sites like IGN and, like books, quote the reviews. This is also part of why there exist "Game of the Year" releases; the key word, of course, being "[[MoneyDearBoy part of]]".
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27	Lastly, one particular trend found within the sphere of general media review sites is the [[TopTenList Top Ten List]]. The Top Ten List is a listing of such things as the "Best Games of this Generation", "Best Albums of the Last Ten Years", "Best Television Shows of the Last Ten Years", etc. While such lists can be helpful every now and then in influencing the commercial decisions (as in "decisions relating to commerce") of potential customers, they too need to be taken with a grain of salt. First and foremost, such lists have generally been known to be put together by a thick "pack" of authors ranging from anywhere between four to one hundred different authors. Therefore, there is a tendency for there to be a good bit of disagreement between the writers regarding what ''does'' and what ''does not'' belong on the lists. Second off, authors of such lists are often worried about possible fan backlash. As such, they often choose to play it safe by avoiding the inclusion of entries that have a high likelihood of getting them loads of hate mail and angry forum comments. Music-based lists are particularly prone to such backlash, which is part of the reason why they tend to heavily favor "fan approved" genres like indie/experimental rock and rap/hip-hop over more polarizing genres like pop and country. It should also be noted that top ten lists are forced to encompass a wide range of genres, resulting in a lot of "apples to oranges" comparisons, such as (in the case of a video game list) a sports game being ranked just above a role-playing game. So, just like the lack of an appearance on a "top ten" list had ought to not make a certain video game unworthy of your time, being on such a list had ought not to automatically make it worthy of your time either.
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29	Perhaps the most important thing to understand is that, whilst a review ''could'' give good insights into a game's technical competence, it can't answer the crucial question of whether said game is right for you personally. Tempting though it might be to snag the latest [=AAA=] game getting 9's and 10's across the board, there are also many important personal considerations to take into account. Would the game's 60+ hour length eventually turn you off to it (i.e. cut into other commitments - including other games that you might be playing or want to play)? Does the game sound like it would offer little that other games in your collection don't already offer? Do you personally dislike the genre/franchise or just feel burned out by it? All are important questions that cannot be answered by somebody else's review for a game. Ultimately, only ''you'' can look at a game and determine whether or not ''you'' would like it.
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31	A Subtrope of MisaimedFandom. Over-adherence to the word of a critic can lead to HePannedItNowHeSucks if the critic ends up giving an unfavorable review to something that a fan loves.
32	----
33	!!Examples:
34
35	[[foldercontrol]]
36
37	[[folder:Arts]]
38	* {{Academicism}} was a movement that instilled rigid rules of proportion and composition. Its stance on any {{art}}work that didn't meet a selected cream-of-the-crop masters' standards can be summed up as "If the Salon [of Paris] rejects it, it's not art". Not even the movement's golden boy, Creator/AlexandreCabanel, was exempt from harsh criticism from these judges. His ''Art/TheFallenAngel'' and ''Orestes'' were decried, the former for being too emotional and the latter for failing at perspective. It became so bad that people like Édouard Manet started the {{Impressionis\|m}}t movement just to [[TakeThat spite]] the masters and free art of the stifling regulation. Examples are ''Art/LeDejeunerSurLHerbe'' and ''Art/{{Olympia}}''.
39	[[/folder]]
40
41	[[folder:Comedy]]
42	* Paula Poundstone once talked about forming opinions based on reviews in a special of hers, averting this:
43	-->'''Poundstone:''' Not that you can take another person's opinion for anything; not even a reviewer. Did you know that when ''Film/TheWizardOfOz'' first came out it was badly reviewed? Yeah. They said it was "Stupid and unimaginative."
44	[[/folder]]
45
46	[[folder:Films -- Animation]]
47	* In ''WesternAnimation/{{Ratatouille}}'', a world-famous chef's reputation and life were destroyed by a harsh critic who had a personal grudge stemming from a differing opinion.
48	[[/folder]]
49
50	[[folder:Films -- Live-Action]]
51	* In real life, the film ''Film/{{Gigli}}'' opened to overwhelmingly negative reviews after ''weeks'' of bad press and negative hype. Critic Amy Dawes, writing for ''Variety'', dared to express her opinion that she kind of liked it in spite of the stupid story, which got her ''[[RoleEndingMisdemeanor fired]]'' from ''Variety''.
52	* In-movie example: In ''Film/SpiderMan3'', Mary Jane is removed from the lead of a play after reviews panned her.
53	* InUniverse example in ''Film/RehearsalForMurder''. At the after party for the premiere of ''Chamber Music'', the producer Walter and the director Lloyd are seen fretting as they await the arrival of the early editions of the papers. When the reviews are lukewarm at best, they philosophically accept that the fact that the play is probably going to fold. However, the police are later willing to accept that the bad reviews (and assumed failure of the play) is the reason why Monica commits suicide.
54	[[/folder]]
55
56	[[folder:Live-Action TV]]
57	* ''[[Series/MysteryScienceTheater3000 MST3K]]'' has spoofed this a few times:
58	** After watching ''[[Recap/MysteryScienceTheater3000S07E06Laserblast Laserblast]]'', they note that Leonard Maltin gave the movie 2 1/2 stars. This prompts Mike to get a book of Maltin's collected reviews and read them over the credits, noting which films are "empirically" better or worse than ''Film/{{Laserblast}}''.
59	** ''[[Recap/MysteryScienceTheater3000S10E03MerlinsShopOfMysticalWonders Merlin's Shop of Mystical Wonders]]'' features a local newspaper reviewer that's full of himself and tells Merlin to "wow" him or be given a bad review. This is then mocked mercilessly and then given a skit where Tom Servo and Crow attempt to destroy each other through the power of negative reviews:
60	--->'''Tom Servo:''' Look, my reviews have leveled whole cities!
61	* Some people took ''Series/XPlay'''s reviews far too seriously, despite the fact that everyone knew their hatred of certain genres and even certain series of games, their tendency to give most games a 2/5, or on the flipside, their strange ability to read far too much into their scores.
62	[[/folder]]
63
64	[[folder:Music]]
65	* Seems to have happened with Music/IronMaiden's ''A Matter of Life and Death'', which got five-star reviews much to the confusion of most fans. The reason fans found this confusing was that ''A Matter'' was praised for its [[EpicRocking long songs]], repetition and [[TooBleakStoppedCaring bleak feel]] -- the very criticisms given to the [[ReplacementScrappy Blaze Bayley]] albums which people were encouraged by critics to avoid.
66	* Inverted by Music/{{Metallica}}'s album ''Music/StAnger'', which got positive reviews and won multiple awards... despite being reviled by nearly every fan of the band (or even genre), and eventually even by the band itself.
67	* In some fandoms, there are plenty of albums which get bad reviews but which fans will still talk about endlessly. Very commonly happens with {{one hit wonder}}s, or at least bands who were only famous with one album.
68	* ''Film/BohemianRhapsody'' pokes fun at this: the movie shows Music/{{Queen\|Band}}'s first release of [[Music/ANightAtTheOpera "Bohemian Rhapsody"]] on the air, overlaid with pop-up quotes from reviewers as one might see in an ad, except the reviews are all horrible; all of them were taken from actual negative reviews the song got in 1975. Of course, the audience knows that the song went on to become a huge hit and one of the band's {{Signature Song}}s.
69	[[/folder]]
70
71	[[folder:Pro Wrestling]]
72	* There are many {{Smart Mark}}s who take [[Wrestling/TheWrestlingObserverNewsletter Dave Meltzer's]] reviews of matches very seriously. There are only a few instances, at least in the U.S., where he gives a match a five star rating. Furthermore, his ratings are taken so seriously, that there is a [[https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/List_of_professional_wrestling_matches_rated_5_or_more_stars_by_Dave_Meltzer Wikipedia article]] about matches he's rated at 5 and higher. Once he broke the 5 star scale after awarding a 2017 match between Kenny Omega and Kazuchika Okada at 6 stars, he rapidly escalated his ratings by giving another Omega vs. Okada match a 6.25 in mid 2017, followed by busting his scale entirely with a full 7 star rating for the 1 hour & 5 minute long two out of three falls epic that capped the Okada and Omega feud once and for all.
73	[[/folder]]
74
75	[[folder:Video Games]]
76	* A quest in ''VideoGame/VampireTheMasqueradeBloodlines'' requires you to find a way to force a food critic to give a restaurant a bad review. Apparently this single review will be enough to destroy its reputation and force it to close down, despite it already being a fairly well known and successful business.
77	[[/folder]]
78
79	[[folder:Web Animation]]
80	* At times, WebAnimation/{{Benthelooney}}'s fanbase have fallen under this (especially after his rant videos were UnCancelled). The most prominent example is ''WesternAnimation/PhineasAndFerb''; while it was a reasonably popular show before, after Ben had critically praised ''WesternAnimation/GravityFalls'' and made subtle hints that he no longer liked ''Phineas and Ferb'' due to its formula, bland atmosphere and characters, many other people had started to agree with him and some people who were once fans of the show had begun hating it for the same reasons. Similarly, ''WesternAnimation/FamilyGuy'', which had a massive hate bandwagon before, worsened once Ben became popular.
81	[[/folder]]
82
83	[[folder:Web Original]]
84	* IGN's annual "Top 25 [Insert Console Here] Games" lists tend to garner a lot of debate from fans. For example, their "Top 25 Nintendo DS Games of All Time" list was heavily criticized for replacing ''VideoGame/MarioAndLuigiBowsersInsideStory'' with ''VideoGame/MarioAndLuigiPartnersInTime'' (a game that, until then, had never even ''charted'' on a Top 25 list).
85	* An article in Kotaku claimed that Japanese gamers were dissatisfied with ''VideoGame/DragonQuestIX'' entirely because the Amazon Japan review scores were extremely low. In addition to the strange idea of gauging game quality via Amazon scores, the article became something of a laughingstock when it got out that the scores were the result of a spam attack by disgruntled users of 2chan.
86	* Pitchfork lacks an editorial policy, and has been known to take part in some very unethical practices. It does not state for the record how its ratings systems work, though the best guess of many is that 7.0 is the de facto standard of what is considering a "good" record or album, let alone one that qualifies for the prestigious "Best New Music" badge. Further, many of their reviews are questionably written. Any hipster will use their logic to deny ''reading'' it, let alone influence their record-buying/pirating decisions, especially after it began its partnership with ABC. But ever since the Music/ArcadeFire's ''Funeral'' LP, any time Pitchfork gives a "Best New Music" badge to an album from a new and upcoming band, that album's sales/downloads will significantly increase, and the band's rep will increase exponentially. It's very difficult to deny that their reviews are considered influential over the hipsters to some degree.
87	* Website/RottenTomatoes and Metacritic, due to their system of deriving an overall score for all the available reviews, are often regarded as providing a definitive stamp of quality (or lack thereof). While this is more understandable than most examples, the fact remains that some people take it too far, and act as though [[http://reallifecomics.com/comic.php?comic=title-1943-2 liking a film scoring 33% on Rotten Tomatoes is empirically indefensible]] ([[https://www.xkcd.com/2184/ if not a challenge]]), despite the obvious logic that ''one third of professional film critics liked it''. Compounding the matter is the fact that these faulty ratings are ''commonly cited as points of endorsement in movie commercials''. Additionally, ''actual'' video game companies have incorporated metascores into their business practices; this includes awarding development teams bonuses based on metascores, and deciding on a target metascore ''before a game has started development''.
88	* While ''VideoGame/RaymanOrigins'' was a bit of a flop in its first month of release, {{Creator/Ubisoft}} greenlit a sequel on the basis that ''Origins'' [[AcclaimedFlop averaged roughly an 89 on Metacritic across all consoles]]. That led to ''VideoGame/RaymanLegends'' which has also been acclaimed, but [[HereWeGoAgain also]] [[AcclaimedFlop flopped]]. This time, Ubisoft [[FranchiseKiller pulled the plug]], and VideoGame/{{Rayman}} hasn't been seen since except in spin-offs.
89	* This unfortunately happened to ''VideoGame/SonicFrontiers'' shortly after its release. The average score on Metacritic was around 72, and therefore disparaged as being SoOkayItsAverage by people who would have otherwise viewed it as a SurprisinglyImprovedSequel and thought the game would WinBackTheCrowd when ''VideoGame/SonicForces'' couldn't. Three things to note here. One, 72% is seen as more than "just average" by most accounts. Two, the threshold for being "good" on Metacritic is 75, meaning that the game was only a few points short of being in the green. Three, the score was dragged down by notably negative reviews that went out of their way to nitpick at every slightly negative thing they could think of while ignoring most of the positives (the prime example of this is Digital Trend's review, which scored the game ''2/10'', and later ''admitted'' to being deliberately negative, since their second review of the game was a much more believable 8/10).
90	* Some of FANDOM's wikis such as ''Crappy Games Wiki'' or ''Awful Movies Wiki'' often had a tendency to invoke this in readers of the websites due to them usually listing [[AccentuateTheNegative every negative aspect]] before any positive ones rather than writing a full fledged article. Ironically pages on certain works would pop up on the sites not long after reviews of them would be uploaded online, but what drives this further is that many of the reasons given in the "Why It Sucks" sections would be taken word by word from many of the reviewers' mouths and that the pages usually listed Youtube videos of these works getting harshly criticized as references.
91	* Even Website/ThisVeryWiki gets in on the action. While references to reviewers have been a staple since the beginning, an abundance of pages (mainly YMMV pages) made references to ''Series/MysteryScienceTheater3000'', Creator/RogerEbert and ''WebVideo/TheNostalgiaCritic'' (amongst others) ''constantly'' (with some examples simply quoting their favorite reviewer and calling it a day) before the website started cracking down on what has come to be known as "needless reviewer references".
92	[[/folder]]
93
94	[[folder:Web Videos]]
95	* Many people take [[WebAnimation/ZeroPunctuation Yahtzee]]'s reviews seriously, despite his known aversion to [[AccentuateTheNegative praising any game, including good ones]]; while there are a relatively large number of games that he likes, ''VideoGame/{{Portal}}'' is the only game he has been unable to find a single fault in.
96	* Possibly due to their media coverage and approval from celebrities such as Simon Pegg and Damon Lindelof, the WebVideo/RedLetterMedia reviews, particularly the ''Star Wars'' prequel reviews have been taken seriously by fans to the point of attacking people that don't agree with them.
97	* WebVideo/TheAngryVideoGameNerd:
98	** This has actually happened a little bit with him averting some of the well-placed nostalgia. Before he reviewed ''VideoGame/CastlevaniaIISimonsQuest'', some user reviews varied from "awesome", to SoOkayItsAverage, mostly saying ''VideoGame/CastlevaniaI'' and ''[[VideoGame/CastlevaniaIIIDraculasCurse III]]'' were better. Then when he reviewed it, it seems a lot of people actually hated the game a ''lot'' more than they originally did. And even if that was his first game he reviewed (it shows if you see the video), a later review had him say that despite his criticisms and complaints, the game was still an okay game.
99	** A similar phenomenon hit ''VideoGame/TeenageMutantNinjaTurtles1989''. Prior to the AVGN's review, the reception was all over the place. After he reviewed the game, the game's reputation took a nosedive, with newer reviews pointing out the game's flaws that his original video. Now, the game's reception is mostly mixed, with complaints about its difficulty and how the game was an InNameOnly adaptation.
100	* While ''VideoGame/TheLegendOfZeldaSkywardSword'' attracted a BrokenBase on release like nearly every game in the series, it was mostly well-regarded at the time. After Egoraptor ''trashed'' the game in one of his ''WebVideo/{{Sequelitis}}'' videos, backlash against the game ''skyrocketed'', to the point where admitting you like it in some circles will get you attacked.
101	* The last part of ''WebVideo/AtopTheFourthWall'''s ''[[ComicBook/TheUltimates Ultimates 3]]'' review has Linkara berate the fans for buying into this, going so far as ridiculing them for accepting ''his'' reviews as the gospel, to explain why he thinks crap stuff like what he usually reviews continues to get published. [[spoiler:Turns out, it's his EvilKnockoff Mechakara doing the review, while Linkara was on vacation...]]
102	* WebVideo/TheNostalgiaCritic has experienced this from both angles. Different sections of FanDumb either trashes someone who disagrees with him, or trashes ''him'' for disagreeing with them:
103	** Just try saying that ''WesternAnimation/RockADoodle'' and ''WesternAnimation/TomAndJerryTheMovie'' were alright movies anyplace on the Internet. You're sure to be flamed by legions of Nostalgia Critic fans. This is also because, before he reviewed them, the movies weren't very well-known, and now people only know about them because of the Nostalgia Critic reviews.
104	** This also applies to other movies he's reviewed. For example, in ''Film/TheFlintstones'' movie, he appears to trash it at first because "It's ''The Flintstones''", [[BiasSteamroller and he prefaced the review with an admission that he didn't even like the original show]]. Immediately after; several people were blindly agreeing that ''Film/TheFlintstones'' sucked for the ''same reason''. This also happened to ''Creator/StephenKing's Literature/{{IT}}'' and Creator/StephenKing as a whole, (even though the Critic has praised some of the movies based on his works before) when the response wasn't HePannedItNowHeSucks.
105	** This is despite the fact that Creator/DougWalker has gone on record that most of the time he doesn't ''actually'' hate the movies but he does AccentuateTheNegative for comedic effect. Most of the time they're just mediocre to decent movies, albeit with genuine flaws (although, what movies ''don't'' have them?). A lot of the flaming comes from his fans missing the point.
106	** The melodramatically titled and huge Website/IMDb list "Movies that are destroying the planet Earth" consists of nothing but films reviewed by either the Nostalgia Critic or associates.
107	** The Critic has gone against this notion a few times, once out of character (by listing 10 popular movies he hates and 10 unpopular movies he likes), and once in-character (where he did a negative review of the ''Film/JamesAndTheGiantPeach'' movie that was constantly interrupted by guntoting fans to make him give a glowing review). Doug never believes that he is the gospel and wants people to stop seeing him as such -- a good way of seeing this is to watch both his and Spoony's "Best/Worst of the Decade" lists and noting the overlap -- quite a few are Worst for one, Best for the other. Also, for the AsHimself review of ''Film/ItFollows'', he apologized for not getting it, and actually asked people who would blindly agree with him not to comment.
108	** This resulted in a {{SugarWiki/Funny Moment\|s}} for the Critic: After taking shots at Creator/MaraWilson in a review, some overzealous viewers took it upon themselves to harass the actress online just because of this. Never mind that the movie he reviewed was hardly the most well-known of her films, and that the actress herself had a great sense of humor regarding her films. Never mind that at the time she was a freaking child who had little to no control over the quality of the films she was in. Detractors felt she had to be informed of what some (popular, yet the grand scheme of the internet) random guy said about her. She originally even mistook the AlterEgoActing for Doug being an unpleasant guy himself. But this led to [[spoiler:Doug and Mara proving they were better people, culminating in her cameo at the end of Critic's ''Film/ASimpleWish'' review, as an EldritchAbomination inflicting her vengeance on him in the form of Doug/Critic's shameful teen home movies]].
109	** The Critic himself has tried to avoid this on several occasions, stating out-of-character that if someone likes a movie he doesn't, that doesn't make them wrong (and vice versa). YMMV on how much success he's had on this front; for instance, after his final ''Old Versus New'' (''{{Film/Manhunter}} Versus Film/RedDragon''), the characters page for ''Film/TheSilenceOfTheLambs'' began to parrot the observations he made on the two films (the most obvious being his comparison of Creator/WilliamPetersen's version of Will Graham and Edward Norton's version).
110	* Do ''not'' disagree with Spoony from ''WebVideo/TheSpoonyExperiment'' on ''VideoGame/FinalFantasyVIII''. [[SarcasmMode You are obviously a blind fanboy if you do so (and you're gay or a yaoi fangirl).]] This is now starting to spread into ''VideoGame/FinalFantasyX'' as he has moved his targets there. The Spoony One is an exaggerated Internet persona though, so the real Creator/NoahAntwiler won't really berate you for it.
111	* WebVideo/TheNostalgiaChick has a lot of teenage male fans who enjoy trying to [[InternetJerk prove their masculinity]]. She tears apart girly movies for a living. You do the math.
112	* Of all of the Website/ChannelAwesome community, no one suffers most from this than WebVideo/TheCinemaSnob. Yes, many movies he reviews really are bad. But keep in mind that he is also a parody of TrueArt critics. As such, he will pan the occasional average movie for the sake of comedy. People will take him seriously. While it is typically easy to tell when he actually does hate a movie and he isn't acting, sometimes it is hard to tell the difference. For reference, he once praised the movie ''Film/{{Film/Salo\|OrThe120DaysOfSodom}}''. For the sake of decency, we will not summarize it further, but suffice to say that the movie was 50% artsy pretentiousness (something that TrueArt critics like) and 150% concentrated evil. People thought he actually liked it, even as his praises were interspersed between scenes of him either throwing up on camera, or trying desperately not to (and ultimately failing). Brad Jones even said he struggled to write positive things about the movie.
113	* The new cases of this stem from ''WebVideo/BrowsHeldHigh'', which usually have commenting sections filled with complaining about the quality of the film, people stating that this is why [[DontShootTheMessage they don't take whatever political thing it might be addressing seriously]], and comments running from "[[TrueArtIsAncient this isn't art]]" to [[NightmareFuel encouraging selective censorship of art]]. All for [[LeFilmArtistique just some films]] that you often wouldn't see outside of film festivals and your DVD player.
114	* In 2012, WebVideo/{{Phelous}}'s negative review of the 2009 TV movie ''WesternAnimation/TurtlesForever'' led to a lot of panning of said movie around the Internet, including a few negative edits on its TV Tropes pages. Up until that review hit the Internet, though, there were ''very'' few (if any) flat-out negative reviews of the movie.
115	* Back when Top Ten writer "The Fiery Joker" Creator/JoshScorcher made response videos towards [=MasterofFoxes=], [=FlamesonFire1212=] and Bhaalspawn (towards [=MasterofFoxes=] because she insulted him for [[HePannedItNowHeSucks hating Okami]], the other two because they made a bad video), you could see this been played towards a severe extreme. [=MasterofFoxes=]'s and Bhaalspawn's channels were even taken down by [=YouTube=] as a result of this, despite even Josh telling fans of his videos that they shouldn't go and spam hatred on their [=YouTube=] channels. Some of the hatred even went as far as personal death threats towards the people targeted by those response videos. It's also the main reason why Josh stopped making response videos.
116	* Video game web site [=GiantBomb.com=] actively works to avert this. They record their annual Game of the Year award deliberations and release them as a series of podcasts, letting the listener in on just exactly how much acrimony, politics, and backbiting goes into coming up with a simple top 10 list and serving as a yearly reminder that these things are ultimately arbitrary and not SeriousBusiness. Not that it helps, but it's [[RuleOfFunny entertaining]].
117	* Website/SomethingAwful gets this ''big time''. Expect the opinions of the SA staff or the majority of its users to be upheld as the standard for educated and critically-founded opinions. Case in point: ''VideoGame/CryOfFear'' was universally praised by SurvivalHorror fans until site creator Rich "Lowtax" Kyanka made a series of LetsPlay videos on [[LetsPlay/GamingGarbage his YouTube channel]] brutally deconstructing and tearing into the game and exposing its should-have-been-glaring flaws. The response that SA-registered forum members and [=YouTube=] commenters witnessing the game was ''absolute, 100% negative'', and the hundreds of thousands of people who praise the game are mercilessly criticized should one of said "goons" ever encounter them.
118	* WebVideo/{{Retsupurae}} tends to draw overzealous fans who take their criticisms of let's players and games too seriously, despite them mentioning several times that they only do their riffs for fun, and don't consider themselves to be serious critics. Expect to see many games that are otherwise considered classic or, at worst, average, get torn apart in the comments, and if you dare say something positive about something they riff on, be prepared to be called a fanboy or accused of wearing nostalgia goggles. You'll also notice that in cases where they riff on a game that one of them actually likes, people will be more positive towards it, even if it wasn't regarded very highly before.
119	* WebVideo/AngryJoe's reviews of the ''VideoGame/{{Risen}}'' games were controversial for some, with people complaining about the fact that he was too harsh on the games. Of course, many of Joe's fans just assumed that he was right without playing the games themselves, despite there being other, less negative, reviews (with the first game being generally well liked, and the second one receiving mixed reviews). Then Joe released a video where he played around with ''Risen 3'', spending the entire video criticizing it, particularly the combat system. This again led to accusations that Joe wasn't really taking his time to actually familiarize himself with the game and made very little mention about anything else, and the video received backlash from fans of the series. Some of his fans still accepted his word, however, arguing with anyone who had anything positive to say about the game. That, by itself, is not particularly notable, but some of his fans even spread onto sites like Amazon.com leaving 1 star reviews of the game with one line reviews, mainly pointing out the same criticisms Joe made in his video (often ignoring the rest of the game, like exploration, quests, skills, etc.), with at least a couple of reviewers even mentioning Joe by name.
120	* Fans and critics of WebVideo/TheMysteriousMrEnter tend to believe this, as anything he praises or criticizes will inevitably become praised / criticized for the same thing, just because Enter said so. Mr. Enter tries to invoke this in a more positive way in his Admirable Animation series. In that series, he points out exceptionally well-made pieces of animation and underrated gems, in an attempt to direct viewers into checking them out.
121	* This is quite prevalent with WebVideo/SchaffrillasProductions' fans, particularly with his opinions on Creator/{{Disney}} and Creator/{{Pixar}} films. To his credit, however, Schaff himself [[https://twitter.com/Schaffrillas/status/1300850369271074817 largely discourages this mindset among his fans.]]
122	** A notable example is his review of ''WesternAnimation/RalphBreaksTheInternet'', where, among other things, he felt that the story was a "cinematic disaster" overall, that Ralph and Vanellope's character arcs were a mess and made [[UnintentionallyUnsympathetic the both of them look bad]], and viewed the [[MassiveMultiplayerCrossover "Oh My Disney" sequence]] to be more of a cynical advertisement than a fun love-letter to Disney's filmography. While these were already common criticisms of the film among its detractors beforehand, ''Schaff'' expressing them caused the movie's reputation to go down the toilet and become regarded as one of the Franchise/DisneyAnimatedCanon's worst entries overnight.
123	** ''WesternAnimation/ShrekForeverAfter'' was, for quite some time, viewed as a thoroughly SoOkayItsAverage film responsible for [[FranchiseKiller sending the franchise back to the swamp]], with the best thing most people could say about it being that it was better than ''WesternAnimation/ShrekTheThird'' ([[DamnedByFaintPraise a low bar to clear]]). Then Schaff reviewed it and had almost nothing but good things to say about it, viewing it as an emotionally satisfying capper to the series that expands on themes introduced in the first two movies in a way that ''Third'' largely did not. Public opinion warmed up to ''Forever After'' not long after, and it's viewed as, if not on the level of the first two ''Shrek'' movies, then at least enjoyable in its own right.
124	* Parodied by ''WebVideo/ScottTheWoz'' at the end of his ''VideoGame/DevilsThird'' review. After claiming it wasn't that bad, he pretends to flip-flop after seeing a professional review give the game a 3.
125	--> "Fuck this game. Silly me, I almost had an opinion there."
126	[[/folder]]
127
128	[[folder:Western Animation]]
129	* An in-universe example occurs in the ''WesternAnimation/{{Arthur}}'' episode "On the Buster Scale". Buster, Brain, and several of their friends see ''Giant Exploding Robots 3D'' in theaters. All of them except Brain like it until Brain delivers a detailed criticism of the movie, which changes the minds of everyone except Buster. Buster begins to review movies in the newspaper that his mom works for, but he has nothing but praise for every movie (all of which involve robots, aliens, monsters, superheroes, and/or explosions). Brain decides to counter this by starting a movie blog, where he rates every movie unfavorably. Their friends keep flip-flopping on whose review to take - until Buster and Brain decide to review a movie together. This is ultimately averted at the end, when their friends call them out on this, with Muffy stating that they have their own opinions.
130	* An in-universe example occurs in the ''WesternAnimation/BobsBurgers'' episode "Moody Foodie," after the restaurant is given a scathing review from the titular food critic (who has ruined several other businesses beforehand). It gets to the point where Teddy (a loyal customer) decides the burgers somehow don't taste as good, then quotes the review when questioned about it. In the end, when Bob tries to force the Moody Foodie to give him a do-over and opens his mail, it turns out that Bob is a {{Hypocrite}}- the package was a DVD for a movie that Bob [[ComplainingAboutShowsYouDontWatch never watched, but hated anyway because a critic gave it a negative review.]]
131	* ''WesternAnimation/DrawnTogether'' was given an "F" by ''Entertainment Weekly'', so a show was made where the characters read the review. They didn't believe at first, but then build a small shrine to ''Entertainment Weekly'' and pray to it for a better score. Then they take matters into their own hands and storm the ''Entertainment Weekly'' offices, killing everyone inside. ''Entertainment Weekly'' responded by reviewing that episode and giving it an "F" because they didn't want the first "F" to get lonely.
132	* Shows like ''WesternAnimation/MegaBabies'' and ''WesternAnimation/JohnnyTest'' mainly gained their notoriously rabid hatedoms by way of the "cartoon community", mainly through members of it such as WebVideo/TheMysteriousMrEnter.
133	* In-universe example in ''WesternAnimation/TheSimpsons'': the episode "Guess Who's Coming to Criticize Dinner" has Homer become the Springfield daily newspaper's restaurant reviewer, and his general inability to discriminate against anything edible leads all the town's eateries to do a roaring trade. However, when this attitude incurs the ire of his fellow reviewers, Homer then takes the opposite tack and scorns every single restaurant. Furthermore, his disparaging comments about the seafood restaurant Frying Dutchman appear in its window pasted over a poor assessment by a health inspector.
134	* An InUniverse example in the ''WesternAnimation/SpongeBobSquarePants'' episode "The Krusty Sponge". When Gene Scallop opens his review of the Krusty Krab by disparaging the restaurant's decor and Squidward's attitude, every customer in the restaurant - all of whom were perfectly willing to eat there beforehand - gets up and walks out. When Gene then praises [=SpongeBob=]'s cooking, however, they all rush back in again, giving Mr. Krabs the idea to rebrand the restaurant in [=SpongeBob=]'s image.
135	[[/folder]]

Context Main / ReviewsAreTheGospel