Michael Marshall Smith is the best-selling author of sci-fi classics Only Forward, Spares and One of us and, writing as Michael Marshall, the Straw Men trilogy, The Intruders and Bad Things.
I know that giving a voice to the man and woman in the street is supposed to be one of the web's greatest triumphs, but there's nothing like reading 'customer reviews' to make me want to let off all the nuclear weapons in the world.
I would love to be able to turn these reviews off, to hide them on Amazon and iTunes and everywhere else, but I can't. We've all been empowered to 'have our say', and the universe is stuck forever with screen acres of the illiterate bleatings of people who've come to believe that having a forum is the same as possessing an opinion worth uttering, and who spew their bile with the pompous self-righteousness of the boring and self-obsessed everywhere.
And of course I don't mean you, dear reader — I'm sure your reviews are all terribly well-struck, insightful and charmingly apposite. I mean… all the rest of them.
My confirmed iJunkie status in the iPhone App Store, for example, means I am now heartily sick of the phrase 'Does what it says on the tin!!!' — a sturdy and unobjectionable standby at first, but now, really, stop it.
Nuff said
The one that most makes me well up with hate, however, is 'nuff said' — used to confer a god-like authority upon whatever spasm of prejudice has just been bleated from a sock-reeking bedroom in Nowheresville.
'This book sux – nuff said!' Or 'iTunes iz a rip-off: there album price is 7.99 but U can by it for 7.98 secund hand – nuff sed!'
And yes, (sic) throughout, obviously. The entire sodding internet should have (sic) after it.
These are, of course, exactly the kind of people who get livid at being charged 59 pence for a piece of iPhone software — on the grounds it 'should' be free — despite being very much not the kind of people who'd bother to learn how to code, join a development program and then spend hundreds and hundreds of hours bringing a product to market.
And there's also a reason why the man in the street is just a man in a street — he doesn't know anything.This is possibly going to be unpopular, and I'm sorry if it sounds elitist, but I simply don't subscribe to the notion that every human utterance commands respect, regardless of the particular human involved.
Polling high street strangers
Everyone deserves to 'have their say', do they? Really? Why would we think that? Why? I don't poll high street strangers for a medical opinion, nor do I trawl the food courts of malls for plumbing tips: so why do television news stations do it for commentary on foreign policy?
And why does the web do it for music and literature? Sure, you may welcome the opinion of friends on such matters (people who've already proved their critical mettle, or whose preconceptions you are familiar with, and can make allowance for) — but why should I take it from unknown randomers, who for all I know may not even have the brains to sit the right way on a toilet?
Because the internet is the ultimate reality show, that's why, where anybody is allowed to have a go. It doesn't matter that Big Brother has finally been canned (THANK GOD) — because we're all now starring in our own tiny corner of the web, where anyone who can reach out of their cage far enough to peck out a few misspelled words on a keyboard is apparently entitled to respect.
Well, sorry, but not from me. I know it's dreadfully unfashionable to give a toss about stuff like spelling and grammar and punctuation — and that I probably sound like a broken record on the subject — but shouldn't there at least be some kind of peer review, the most basic of tests to gauge whether an opinion is worth hearing?
Grammar checker
Websites that encourage 'feedback' should have a grammar checker, for a start. Not a super-strict one (my own word-use hardly conforms to Victorian ideals, and nor need it) but just enough to weed out the most brain-curdling errors.
And I don't mean that the post should merely be corrected — I mean the post should be disallowed. If you can't take the time and trouble to learn how to write a coherent sentence, then why on earth do you believe people should listen to what you have to say?
This applies particularly to the books section of Amazon, and I'll concede that (as a novelist) I could appear to have a vested interest in stifling the god-given right of the consumer to HAVE THEIR SAY.
Your comments (8) Click to add a new comment
smithereens
November 26th 2009
8. "Surely you, an author who produces work that will ultimately be reviewed by your peers must have this trick nailed down by now?"
That's the problem right there. The Internet fostered illusion of equality - you said *peers*. Michael Marshall Smith is not your peer. He's the brilliantly successful, award winning author of Spares and Only Forward and Straw Men. You're just some bloke.
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mark_gristock
September 11th 2009
7. Two things: It's not arrogance to think some reviews should be ignored. It's the lack of context. "This b the first book I red and it make me puke." is not the same as "of the number of books I have read on this subject, this one is the most mis-informed and unenlightening drivel I've ever had the misfortune to come across." There is no way of telling the difference between someone whose opinion the reader should value (as being relevant to them) and someone they would disagree with on every subject under the sun and desperately avoid in a public place.
Oh, and to add to the list of things that should not be allowed - "I've paid my money, I have the right to be a ****."
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bubbahotepuk
September 11th 2009
6. I'd give this article 3/5.
There is a strong case for the Web apparently reducing critical thinking & expression, but I think we are only at the primordial soup end of the Web's evolution. I expect things to evolve.
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fastrez
September 11th 2009
5. Interesting post. I'm curious however. Can you give us an insight into what it is like to lack the ability to see things from the perspective of other people? We're not all 'authors', but the internet is indeed a democracy and one that has given everyone a voice.
It's been that way for 20 years now. If you haven't become used to that fact at this stage, maybe you should stop reading user reviews or have another crack at growing a thick skin.
Surely you, an author who produces work that will ultimately be reviewed by your peers must have this trick nailed down by now?
Perhaps not.
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jamiemid
September 11th 2009
4. Thanks holness - good point - now fixed.
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holness
September 11th 2009
3. 'but why should I take it from unknown randomers, who for all I know may not event have the brains to sit the right way on a toilet?'
I do not see the need for the word event in the above paragraph, however I could see the word irony fitting in quite nicely.
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