~~The time is now, I have Rearrived!! ~~. Review on Mouthshut

During the time I was finishing up my last review on ‘The Departed’, I noticed my next review that I would write would be by 50th!!

I was thrilled, and my mind started to race. I have come across a number to topics that I think I would like to write on like Management styles, Being a good employee, Fairness creams and all the BullS**t they sell etc etc. But nothing seemed worthy so after pondering for a good hour I realized, what better way to celebrate your 50th review than with write up on Mouthshut.

I remember my review on ‘Kuch Kuch Hota Hai’ was my 25th review…and that was a looooooong time ago. But I am getting ahead of myself, so let me start from the beginning.

I stumbled across Mouthshut in early Jan of 2003. I was absolutely fascinated (mind you those were according to me the Golden years) so without wasting time I became a member on Jan-16-03.

My very first review was on The Body Shop Seaweed & Peony Shampoo. I stated with just the basics, wrote probably 150-200 words and no formatting. Expectedly a member asked me to write better reviews, but most importantly, the very first message I got was ‘Welcome to MS’. Those simple words brought me joy, and thus started my journey with this site.

Being a slow learner I guess, my 4th review is really the one where I started to really think before I wrote anything, paid attention to what I was saying and how I was saying it. I made sure my formatting was done, my spell check was done, and in short my review was something that I could be proud of.

Slowly but steadily seasoned writers on this site started to read rate and comment on my reviews. Karana23, Premjit, Suyog, Cousin2, just-did-it, dazzlingpiscean, teena_sri, vivekbp, madlayla and many many more started to take interest, discuss the review, leave compliments, presented rebuttals and in general left behind their thoughts on my reviews.

I remember wanting to write all the time, wanting to write something interesting, something that made sense, not just rave and rant without a purpose. And I did, I wrote with all my heart, on Air-India, on Cadbury’s Chocolate, on the Worst Actors and Actresses. And every time I posted a review I would check back every 5-10 mins to see if someone read the review. I was assured that if the review was good, I would hear back from my trusted circle.

Trusted circle! It meant that you trusted the person, his/her judgment, you like their style; it took time to build trust. Ratings were based on the review, not on the person; comments were left on the review and not used to make personal attacks on the person. I loved it here! But alas the winds of change were blowing.

I happened to take a break for graduate school, and when I came back, nothing was the same, the people who I had come to trust and admire, whose musings I looked forward to reading were all gone. Suyog was flagged, Karan, Prem all had just disappeared. Instead I saw new faces, read new reviews and was forced to tolerate below average crap in the name of contest reviews. Who can forget the very recent Go to GOA contest, 75 of 100 recent reviews were for the contest, and I would not be unfair saying that most of them were not worth anounce of dung at their bestPeople were writing just enough to clear the 150 words limit. Some even went to the extent of Typing words to fulfill the limit

Typing words to fulfill the limit

Typing words to fulfill the limit

Typing words to fulfill the limit

Whoa!!! Almost fell into a trap there myself. Anyways back to my point. Reviews were rated not on how well they were written or what was expressed in them, instead the author was rated, based on whether they were liked or disliked. I noticed two members (will not take their name) who had literally gone thru the recent 100 list and rated every one of then VU…….just to earn points.

Comments, no one bothers anymore, no one cares, coz it doesn’t matter. The review you posted 4-5 hrs back will now feature in the recent hundred and if you are super lucky in the recent 50,So my review, that I put so much thought and effort into is forced to compete with reviews, that are on the wrong topic, have a line copied in them many times to fulfill the words requirement, and that do not make sense any way which way you read them!! So when there is no visibility, after taking all that pain and effort to write a review, it doesn’t get read, doesn’t get rated, no one comments, so then why do it at all???

The new profile needed your face to be stuck on it. It didn’t matter that you wrote good solid reviews, it didn’t matter that you were a model member till date, it didn’t matter you were sincere when you read, rated and commented on someone’s review…..if you didn’t have your snap on the profile page and didn’t write stuff about yourself, you were not even acknowledged. But then the rule if implemented should be followed right?? And the rule says…you should have a snap of ‘YOURSELF’ not your dog, or Salman Khan, or Pamela Anderson or a Caricature posted in your profile, but tell me how many have cheated their way thru this rule???? And what has the MS admin done about them??? Can I point out, one such supposed ‘STAR’ writer has a picture that is apparently so not her!!

All these negatives drove me away for sometime. But then I decided, I’m here coz I enjoy it, and decided to make a so called come back. I write on topics I know and/or care about, I read only those topics that I am aware of, and don’t indiscriminately rate reviews to accumulate points, making sure that I actually read the review, rather than rating it based on how long it is.

But most importantly I have found that I am still willing to log in almost everyday, read reviews and maybe once in a while go back to my old reviews and those of my old friends and reminisce about the days when I couldn’t stay away!!!