Yes, they get free stuff to review. But the real story goes way deeper than that.
An Amazon fulfillment center in Phoenix, AZ.
Ross D. Franklin / AP
This week NPR published a story about Amazon's Vine Voice invitation-only program, which sends free items, ranging from cookies to digital cameras, to top reviewers in order for them to be reviewed. The implication: People are writing hundreds or thousands of reviews in order to get free stuff. The story also solicited angry comments from Vine reviewers themselves, allowing a rare look into the world of the hardcore Amazon reviewers. The real story, they suggested, wasn't being heard.
BuzzFeed reached out to some of the commenters, as well as people on Amazon's Top Ten Reviewer List (the most up-votes currently) and in the site's Hall of Fame (best over the years).
What we found was a peculiar world of cutthroat competition, gossip, drama, creativity, altruism, egos, and truly well-crafted reviews. For many, writing reviews can be a much-needed escape from real life; a creative outlet amongst a dull corporate world; a way to stick to the man; a place to find a voice, be noticed; and a way to make friends. It's much deeper than free stuff. After all, you have to be an avid reviewer, usually with at least 1,000 reviews, long before you can qualify for Vine.
"There are a lot of reasons why people review on Amazon, ranging from the legitimate desire to share their knowledge (or show it off), the need to feed large egos, and even to just get 'free' stuff from Amazon and other vendors," said one Vine reviewer who identified himself only as Mr. Frick, for privacy reasons.
Bob Tobias / Via amazon.com
For Frick, it started as a hobby while he was undergoing chemo treatment and needed a distraction. He used to write at least two posts a day, spending as much as three hours on ones that included videos. His thousands of reviews run the gamut from camcorders to low-carb candy, to sci-fi books, to headphones. "I did it because I appreciated others taking time to praise or warn about products, and it was fun to share what I thought of items I spent my hard-earned money on," he told BuzzFeed. "I also enjoyed answering technical questions from other customers and 'meeting' folks with similar interests." He's made online friends with many of the other reviewers as well.
As his cancer treatment has progressed, he's slowed down to batches of reviews once or twice a week. "It still takes a lot of time, but is much more manageable," he says. "I have turned down hundreds of dollars in merchandise over the past few months because it would be hard to give them the attention they deserve."
At its best, reviewing gives people a public voice and a particular sense of importance — something Amazon helps to foster. You get an official ranking, with badges and titles, affirming your expertise as one of the top writers on a website with 250 million unique visitors a month.
"You can provide feedback to manufacturers and vendors that is actually listened to," wrote a user named rugby007 on the NPR website. "There are so many stupid products, with ridiculous features and meaningless, hyperbolic copy, and it's rewarding — and fun — to point this out to the people who make and sell them. Maybe someday down the line we'll get better products."
"It may sound a little grandiose, but it's a desire to help fellow humans make a little sense off the noisy and aggressively strident marketing-embellished reality that's surrounding and is constantly pushing to take control over and redesign and reshape our thoughts, instincts, even reflexes," reviewer Arth Denton told BuzzFeed.
For Denton, a big part of the equation is the "satisfaction of sticking it to 'the man' when I can debunk the hype (think obscenely overpriced Monster cables as a good example)," he said.
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