Today is the second time I participate in Linda Hill’s streams of consciousness. To read about the rules and participate click here. Today’s prompt for Stream of Consciousness Saturday is “review.” The first thing that came to my mind was the review wars on Amazon.
I’ve written several hundred reviews on Amazon, for software, computers, electronics, consumer products, movies and books. I was an Amazon Vine Voice for many years. Amazon Vine Voice is a program where Amazon reviewers receive free products from vendors in exchange for unbiased reviews. You must be invited by Amazon. However, as I was offered fewer expensive items, I got annoyed and I quit. My thinking was basically, if I don’t get a free TV or computer, I am not writing any reviews. I kind of regret that now. Free products are still free products.
There were and still are a lot of shady reviews and shady reviewer behavior on Amazon. This sometimes led to fights. I remember one prominent reviewer, Harriet Klausner. She was the #1 ranked reviewer on Amazon.com for many years and she held the #1 spot in the Amazon reviewer hall of fame at the time of her death. If you spent any significant time on Amazon as a reviewer, you know who Harriet Klausner is. I did a quick search for her as I was writing this, and I found the Wikipedia link for Harriet Klausner.
Harriet Klausner wrote 30,000+ book reviews in a relatively short time. I counted 20,000 reviews in just a few years. She loved every book and every book was intriguing to her. Almost every book was five stars. Then some people started accusing her of not really reading that many books, or for being biased. I admit I also had my doubts that someone could read thousands of books per year. Some people came to her defense while others claimed she was a fake. We may never know the truth, but the negativity spread.
People started accusing each other of faking reviews and fights broke out. Reviewer gangs were formed. They went around clicking the unhelpful button on other people’s reviews. One reviewer could get 3 helpful clicks the day after he published a review and then get 1,000 unhelpful clicks the day after. This affected the reviewer’s standing in the ranks. People were trying to improve their rankings, which back then were published next to the reviewers name, and fights broke out over the ranks. Amazon mostly put a stop to this by changing how the rank was calculated, hiding the reviewer rank well, and eventually removing the unhelpful button, as it was so widely misused.
Reviewer rank was a major cause for the Review Wars but the actions that Amazon took greatly improved the situation. However, there is still some really shady stuff happening on Amazon. For example, people writing negative reviews for books they have not read. In this case it is not reviewer rank that is the cause. People slam books they have not read because they don’t like the author, or they don’t like the topic. Sometimes, inauthentic reviewers can slam a book just because it is written by an independent author.
Topics like evolution, climate science, vaccines, religion and politics, offend some people and attract dishonest reviewers. Even a simple fact that is widely accepted by experts/scientists in the field can enrage some people. For that reason, books on these topics can get a lot of negative reviews from people who never bought the book, or if they did, they never gave the book a chance. This is often obvious to those among us who actually read the book.
Another related phenomenon are commentors who attack or argue with reviewers who have left a positive review for a book. This happened to me. I wrote a five star review for a climate science book I really liked, and this guy started leaving comments on my review in which he attacked the book and the author. He did not attack me, not directly, but he said disparaging things about the author. What was behind all this was that the author had sued a couple of people for one million dollars for defamation and people associated with the defendants attacked the author and the people who wrote positive reviews for the book (using fake names of course). Reading a bit about what was going on I found out that it was possible that I was arguing with one of the defendants, a Fox News host by the name of Mark Steyn.
Note: The author of the book in question won the one million dollar lawsuit in 2024 but the amount was reduced by a judge in 2025. I can add I ended up sitting next to Mark Steyn on a flight from Marseille to London. I was going to ask him if he had paid the one million dollars, but I said nothing. I moved next to my wife (empty seat) and another Fox News anchor took my seat.
Naturträne a Dark Punk-Opera Life Review
Speaking about reviews, a piece of music that popped up in my head as I was writing this post is Naturträne (Nature’s Tear) a German PunkOpera song by Nina Hagen. Naturträne describes a woman who appears to be distraught over natural degradation (rattling exhaust pipes / Auspuffrohre knattern) and a lost love and her crushed soul. My high school German is rusty. You can say it is a very poetic but dark review of her life. For those who don’t know who Nina Hagen is, she is a former East German Opera singer, actress and musical artist who sings in the Punk-Opera genre and is known for her theatrical style.
She was able to make it to West Germany, and the song below was performed at Rock Palats in 1978. If you don’t know who Nina Hagen is (Europeans will know who it is) you are in for a shock. She depicts a distraught and crazy woman very well. However, it is bizarre but authentic.
Do you like Punk-Opera?
Sorry, that’s the question that popped up in my head right now.
Leonberger Life 
The review thing is unbelievable, Thomas. Yikes. I’ve stopped paying attention to reviews for anything since several years now because there’s so much manipulation occurring. The turning point occurred when I was asked to leave a review for a service and saw that the ratings themselves were ridiculous – the lowest possible out of three was “unlikely to recommend” while the other two were on the stupidly high end. I wanted to give a response much lower than “unlikely to recommend” so I refused to do the review at all.
Then I was pursued for a review over email and then finally by phone. I explained why I wouldn’t give a review and the caller proceeded to argue with me that “unlikely to recommend” was very negative. I realised I was talking to a company moron who had imbibed a lot of koolaid and hung up. So now I don’t read reviews and I don’t give them either. I do my product or services homework in other ways.
As to your final question, I’m not a fan of either opera or punk, so putting them together would not be a good choice for me. 😉
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Thank you, Thomas, for this eye-opening post. I noticed an abrupt change a few years ago, I think it was, in Amazon book reviews in particular. Now, I know the whole story.
And I do know who Nina Hagen is! I remember The Nina Hagen Band…but I am probably dating myself by acknowledging that point…eh?
Great share and wonderfully researched and written work, Thomas. Thank you.
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