Bernadette’s Mother writes about Google Reviews
By Carin Robinson
On judging others: Bernadette’s mother had been well acknowledged for
many decades as being the preeminent scholar of evaluative writing. But
it was not until well after the work of Thomas Aquinas, and his five
ontological proofs for the existence of God, that the order to which
Bernadette’s mother belonged, was willing to put forward her work. Their
concern was that the brilliance of her thinking might eclipse his. Her
seminal essay on evaluative writing titled, ‘Google Reviews, an
Antipathy to the Human Condition’, is now regarded as foundational to
the scholasticism of the secular world, and is viewed with the same high
regard as is the Nicene Creed in non-secular thought. *1
Bernadette, who was not only her mother’s child but also her father’s,
longed to understand the content and also importance of her mother’s
essay. But being her father’s child made her ill disposed to sitting in
one place for a very long…unless it was to choose dress fabric or drink
champagne. Nevertheless, even Bernadette understood that absorbing her
mother’s pivotal essay would require some sitting still and
concentrating on, heaven forbid!, only one dismal object, like a scroll,
for a few hours.
To follow then, is Bernadette’s synopsis of the famous essay. Her mother
said of her synopsis: “It is close enough, darling, the missed bits are
not that important.” The eventual fame achieved by her mum’s essay,
fondly called just ‘Google Reviews’, was in part due to Bernadette’s
synopsis.
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*1 It might come as a surprise that Google Reviews existed within the same epoch as Thomas Aquinas. This surprise is, however, based on nothing but a psychological idiosyncrasy. It is well established that Google exists Universally and Absolutely, across Time and Space. Google Reviews, therefore, must by logical necessity be The Last Word on Everything.
The only real mystery of evaluative writing, from now on called
‘reviewing the worth of others’, or just ‘reviewing’, is the nature of
those who do this. Who writes to Google Reviews and tells the world
that, in particular, someone has failed abysmally? Who does this when
the failure poses no danger to anyone? Often the reviewed is simply
frying eggs, or selling hamburgers. Even more mystifying, who notifies
the world that someone has not failed abysmally, but has only failed
mildly, and that their next eggs might very well be better fried? But,
by far the most mystifying are those who notify the world of badly fried
eggs when there are no eggs being fried at all, and never have been.
Indeed, this happens! The ever-threatening possibility of a decimal drop
in Google-worth that an egg-fryer must live in mortal fear of, is a
product of the Google-averaged-star system. But surely this system is
utterly meaningless? Let me explain.
For instance, can a badly fried egg delivered by, even, a drunk waiter
really be the full story on that day at the egg frying eatery? Even more
so, can a badly fried egg and a drunk waiter be the full story over
thirteen years at the egg frying eatery?
Egg frying could, of course, be consistently terrible on every day. This
is possible. As could coffee, service and sandwiches. But who will have
knowledge of this fact? Not the people who consistently eat there,
because then they wouldn’t. Consistent failure could, of course, be
measured if every single person who eats a fried egg at that eatery
provides a value for the worth of their egg, nearly every single time.
But since this is not the case the ‘4.2 – Google stars’ is more a
reflection of what a specific type of person thinks of the eatery, on
the odd occasion. And, beware statisticians, the ‘4.2’ will not be an
evaluation of only fried eggs, either. Because some people award five
stars for the prettiness of a loo (yes, ‘tis true!), and others give
one-star for the eatery’s decision not to make fried eggs after midnight
and others give two stars because things were sold out before they
arrived. And all that goes into the ‘4.2’. Never before, or since, has
‘4.2’ been so rich in completely obscure meaning.
That ‘4.2 star-value’ is the accumulation of a disparate sample of
metrics as well as the questionable aesthetics of a varied population.
In the words of my dear late mother, ‘Delige Proelium’ (or ‘Pick Your
Battle’ as they say in the washing rooms downstairs). Unless the
reviewed is dangerously dispensing dubious medicine to young children,
it is only the reviewer who receives any benefit from exposing the
failings of an egg fryer. There is no saying what that benefit is, but
it is unlikely that the reviewed can respond to ‘very disappointed’ in a
meaningful way. Nor is it possible that the reviewed knows how to change
their cheesecake recipe when someone says ‘that cheesecake should not
exist’, while it sells out every day. There is nothing for it, but for
the egg fryer to steel themself against the hostilities of a digital
star system and keep in mind the multifarious nature of human taste,
mood and general war faring ways.
