Why should these matter for us consumers?

Just thinking out loud after a few exchanges with friends on twitter, I attempt to figure out the utility of these things.

Objective #1: Selection

You need to watch something new (or read something). If at this point you don’t have a community around you that have a good sense of what you enjoy (who will directly recommend items for you), then you’ll need other sources of decision-making considerations. Some sources are:

• Awards lists (a form of consensus review)
• Aggregated/Averaged review scores (you can trim this to include only reviewers you trust)

I don’t suggest that this is the ultimate determining factor of the selection decision. This will depend on your trust level, mood, and perhaps other things. I do suggest that it’s not a bad place to start.

Objective #2: Affirmation (and/or Domination)

This is more important to people than you think! You then interact with the marketplace of opinions and the jostling (directly or indirectly) to establish who has influence, and what is accepted opinion.

Works and authors have fanbases who care how these things are perceived. Part of these is the very human desire to appear tasteful, cultured, etc. All this contributes to influence dynamics.

Things that come into play:

• Individual rating habits (gives too high scores, gives away too many 10s; conversely tries too hard to portray strict standards, excessive harshness, etc.)
• Methodologies for rating (belief in non-arbitrary therefore objective criticism and rating, rates enjoyment factor primarily, wild arbitrariness, etc.)
• The stew of biases (genre, fandom, anti-fandom, inexperience with examples, recency, etc.)

While it may seem that I’m negatively portraying this objective, I submit that it’s a part of fan activity and is a source of much secondary recreational value that I too indulge from time to time. After all, this objective directly or indirectly impacts the first.