Not a lot of people are aware of this, but I’ve been writing reviews of things on Yelp.com for like five years now. Primarily restaurants and the occasional business, but for the most part, it’s something I’ve done that conveniently acts as something of a chronicling of my dining experiences in my travels or general living, while indulging in my general enjoyment of writing.
Obviously, there’s often discussion about the ethics of review sites like Yelp and how there are always conspiracies of sites holding small businesses hostage with bad reviews, small businesses altering their behavior at the knowledge of known reviewers, etc, etc., but all that stuff doesn’t concern me, nor do I really care about any of it. For the longest time, I’ve been content to keep my Yelp identity hidden, behind a faceless avatar, that wrote reviews of places completely anonymously, save for the customary first name and last initial. Something about doing it like that made me self-righteously believe that there was more integrity in doing it that way, as I thought those people who revealed themselves and under the banner of “Elite status” felt subliminal pressure to pander from time to time.
I also thought Yelp was kind of cliquey in some regards, no more apparent than when someone writes a review of a place that’s literally no more than the phrase “omg I really luv this place <3 <3 <3 !!!!” and it’s nominated as a city-wide “review of the day,” as voted for by local peers. Doesn’t seem like there’s much integrity in “reviews” like such.
But with the coercion of friends, the notion of simply doing something different with my life, and the idea that it was an opportunity to socialize, meet people, and get occasional free shit, I crossed the line of anonymity and put a face to my name. Achieving Elite status was pretty simple, as all it takes is endorsement from an existing Elite, and my fairly consistent reviewing activity was sufficient enough to make it so, not to mention I had an outstanding invite from the former community manager.
Whatever though, now that we’ve caught up on my history with Yelp, over the weekend, I went to my very first Yelp event. It just so happened to be the supposed largest one of the year, held at one of the more famous venues in Downtown Atlanta.
To cut to the chase, I thought it was, by all definition of the phrase, meh.
Typically, I don’t really like to resort to stuff like internet slang, and I could have just as easily used terms as “alright,” or “okay,” but this was one of those instances where the phrase has apparently become so commonplace and engrained in the vernacular of the crowds I hang out with, that meh was basically the first thought that popped into my head when I try to consolidate my feelings and thoughts into minimal words.
To the credit of Yelp and the event itself, it was undoubtedly impressive, clearly well executed, and seemingly pretty smoothly run. But it’s the things they can’t necessarily control, like the poor weather, and the societal norms of people cliquing together in their small micro-groups that don’t interact with those in their own mini cliques, that kind of defeat the purpose of gatherings that make the event as a whole feel kind of meh.
I’d be willing to bet that my feelings might differ had the circumstances been different in the fact that maybe I knew more people going into the event, maybe if the event didn’t allow for +2 guests, so that I could actually meet other people that actually wrote shit on Yelp, as opposed to being the tagger-alongs in for the free food, drink and swag.
But anyway, I got a flask, which was undoubtedly the coolest piece of swag there was, so I’m happy with that. Admittedly, I’d probably be pretty pissed though if I didn’t get a flask, while people along for the ride mooched them all previously; I mean, I’ve written over 200 reviews of places all across the country, and I’m not trying to sound like I’m pulling rank, but shit I think I actually deserve my free stuff.
Back to the event though, it was impressively run, no doubt. Numerous local businesses set up sample stations, and there were an impressive number of businesses also there to give out free stuff. There was a lot of free food, and even more free booze, and it’s safe to say that if I had a designated driver, I probably would have gotten drunk, for sure. Tito’s Handmade Vodka, I really liked in cocktails; a lot.
The one thing that I was not really keen on was the lines for the troika of food vendors in the basement, that was about as neatly organized as the bedroom of a teenager. Some ropes, or even some painters tape on the ground to show some order in how a line should flow would have helped immensely, and not caused the agonizing log jams of people that teetered on hostility at times, for what amounted to people waiting for some Indian street food. Needless to say, an Indian sloppy joe, SmashBurger fries and a doughnut were not really worth the 60 minutes standing in a horrendously unorganized line of people.
As I alluded, I also thought that there were simply too many people at the event. At the same time, depending on where in the Tabernacle you went, it may not have seemed like there were enough people in the venue. The bottom line is that people came for free booze and swag and food over anything else, like the music any performers. In a sense, I came for the free food and booze too, but I honestly wouldn’t have minded meeting new people, but this is where the whole thing of people coming with close confidants in the first place means they don’t have to really feel like they want to meet new people either.
One funny observation I had were the large contingent of Asian people present at the event. Now one other reason that I was always reluctant to fully open up to Yelp was that there was often this stereotype that Yelp was pretty predominantly Asian users, and me being the Twinkie-banana U.S.-born Asian-American that really tries to go against the grain and not do what other Asians do, the fact that I wrote on Yelp in the first place was already like a strike one against me.
But to a degree, perception is reality, and there really were a lot of Asian folks present at this event. And this is where it occurred to me that it really makes me wonder if their entire end game to being Yelpers in the first place stems from the fact that Elites are simply privy to free stuff periodically, because as I’ve witnessed myself, and in myself, is that Asians love free stuff.
Case in point was that I happened to get to the event somewhat early; being such an Elite noob meant getting there actually close to the start time, instead of remotely trying to be fashionably late. That being said, I saw pretty early on tables and tables of free samples and swag being given away. Sure, I took a sample of jerky or some pretzels, and indulged in them fairly immediately, because I was hungry, but after the first hour of the event, all those tables were completely barren. Subsequently, the event now had vastly more Asian people present, all of them carrying the complimentary swag bags given out in one of the suites, and all of their bags visibly weighted down.
I’m not saying they were the ones primarily responsible for the fast disappearance of free samples, but all I could really think of was a story of how my mom and aunt dragged me to a Macy’s department store, because Macy’s had a class action lawsuit settlement that resulted in them giving away cosmetics until they reached a particular dollar amount. When we got to the Macy’s in old Springfield Mall, lines sprawled out in like six different directions, and 90% of the people in the lines were all Asians.
I don’t know the details that spawned Macy’s getting sued in the first place, but I have a hard time believing that it was Asian immigrant women feeling cheated about wages or falsely advertised quantities, but you might be inclined to think so, considering 90% of people coming for “reparation” were Asian immigrant women.
It turned out that both my mom and my aunt found out about “free makeup at Macy’s,” without even knowing why it was even happening, though an online message board frequented by other Korean women. Free shit at Macy’s, don’t ask questions.
Needless to say, in spite of the implications that it was really supposed to be one per customer, it didn’t stop my mom and aunt and the hundreds of other Asian women from hopping from line to line, attempting to hoard as many free samples as they could. And much to my mother’s horror, she became the unfortunate pariah out of all the Asian women present to get recognized by a Macy’s employee after a shift rotation put this employee back in front of my mom in a different line, to receive a public admonishment and refusal to give another free sample.
Asian people love free shit. Even if it means one out of every three present actually has to exert some effort to make it happen occasionally, like at a Yelp event.
In conclusion, the Yelp Elite event was alright. Meh. I think I’d have to go to more smaller events and get to know more people within the community before I could really fully appreciate an event on a larger scale like this one, but I’m certainly not closing the door on it, after the hassle it took to get me to walk through it in the first place.
Besides, if for anything at all, free shit.
