Amazon Reviews Are the New Battleground of American Politics
Is history being written “not by the victors, but by the customer reviews“? The day after the release of Hillary Clinton’s What Happened, the Amazon review section for the book began to mirror the electorate: a slew of five stars, and a slew of vitriolic, aggressive, often violent one stars. Amazon then removed about 900 of the reviews, citing “community guidelines.” White Nationalist reddit users have also used one-starring attacks to drop the rating of Mark Bray’s AntiFa: The Anti-Fascist Handbook. There’s little data about how much a book’s star rating on Amazon influences sales, but how many people will be turned away from a book because of star ratings left by people who have admittedly never, and will never, read it?
The Rupi Kaur Backlash Begins
Rupi Kaur, the famous poet who got her start on Instagram, has sold over 2.5 million copies of her book Milk and Honey, and has just released a new collection called The Sun and Her Flowers. The think-pieces about how her work isn’t “real” poetry have begun, a few of which are linked to in this NYT profile. The pieces are undeniably condescending, perhaps having to do with the fact that Kaur is a young (25) woman. Her style isn’t for everyone, but I find it both refreshing and predictable that a young woman of color would be responsible, at least in part, for making poetry mainstream again.
LeVar Burton Reads Goodnight, Moon to Neil deGrasse Tyson
And because it’s Monday and it’s been a rough October, here’s a video of LeVar Burton (yes, that LeVar Burton) reading a children’s book to Neil deGrasse Tyson (yes, that Neil deGrasse Tyson).
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