Vice episode on how they managed to do it: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=bqPARIKHbN8
‘The Shed at Dulwich’ was London’s top-rated restaurant. It didn’t exist
11–20 of 32 posts
Re: ‘The Shed at Dulwich’ was London’s top-rated restaurant. It didn’t exist
#12“You don’t have to run faster than the bear to get away. You just have to run faster than the guy next to you.”
There is beefing up a steak house, however, inversely this can be a vector of attack. If a restaurant has .2 or .4 star rating higher than the other restaurants in its class they will do well. It is hard to give a restaurant 1 star without getting noticed. However, it is possible to get their rating to drop a few small notches below their competition without getting noticed which can badly hurt their revenue.
Re: ‘The Shed at Dulwich’ was London’s top-rated restaurant. It didn’t exist
#13These things, while fun, are frankly rather scary to me. They show us how far society has moved away from truth, in our value of other people’s opinions, rather than the institutions that actually factcheck before they spread false information.
If you watch the vidio in the vice article, they even open up their fake restaurant and serve pre-processed “shit-foods” to an audience who then willingly rates their powdered soup and frozen lasagna as above average.
Of courses I laughed at it and it’s certainly a well done troll, but it’s also a microverse of how we ended up with a bunch of flat-earthers, anti-vaxxers, and, a reality tv star as president of the United States.
Re: ‘The Shed at Dulwich’ was London’s top-rated restaurant. It didn’t exist
#14I will say, if nothing else, this guy will have a great career in marketing. His shed's online presence was top notch, half the restaurateurs I know would do well to emulate him.
They put all their effort into looking legitimate and none of it into being legitimate, which confers a certain advantage.
Re: ‘The Shed at Dulwich’ was London’s top-rated restaurant. It didn’t exist
#15These things, while fun, are frankly rather scary to me. They show us how far society has moved away from truth, in our value of other people’s opinions, rather than the institutions that actually factcheck before they spread false information. If you watch the vidio in the vice article, they even open up their fake restaurant and serve pre-processed “shit-foods” to an audience who then willingly rates their powdered…
I don't think so. Snake oil salespeople are a thing of history because people are willing to believe and people are willing to con. Many other major beliefs it can be argued have similar traits.
Re: ‘The Shed at Dulwich’ was London’s top-rated restaurant. It didn’t exist
#16To me, this suggests the value of professional food critics as well-known sources of... well maybe not truth, but at least honest opinion. It's easy to fake a crowd. It's a lot harder to impersonate a well-known individual's trusted name.
Depth (well-known individual who built their reputation over time) versus Breadth (crowd). We seem to increasingly incentivize breadth of appeal over depth. TV Shows that appeal to the lowest common denominator, etc.
Breadth makes more money.
Re: ‘The Shed at Dulwich’ was London’s top-rated restaurant. It didn’t exist
#17These things, while fun, are frankly rather scary to me. They show us how far society has moved away from truth, in our value of other people’s opinions, rather than the institutions that actually factcheck before they spread false information. If you watch the vidio in the vice article, they even open up their fake restaurant and serve pre-processed “shit-foods” to an audience who then willingly rates their powdered…
How do you know you wouldn’t fall for frozen lasagna in the same situation?
Re: ‘The Shed at Dulwich’ was London’s top-rated restaurant. It didn’t exist
#18These things, while fun, are frankly rather scary to me. They show us how far society has moved away from truth, in our value of other people’s opinions, rather than the institutions that actually factcheck before they spread false information. If you watch the vidio in the vice article, they even open up their fake restaurant and serve pre-processed “shit-foods” to an audience who then willingly rates their powdered…
It's nothing new, as a large group of people are raised with the values that believing is better than knowing. It's the core of every religion. As long as we accept religion, we tell people that it's ok to just believe whatever someone says or writes, instead of employing some critical thinking, and demanding facts,
Re: ‘The Shed at Dulwich’ was London’s top-rated restaurant. It didn’t exist
#19These things, while fun, are frankly rather scary to me. They show us how far society has moved away from truth, in our value of other people’s opinions, rather than the institutions that actually factcheck before they spread false information. If you watch the vidio in the vice article, they even open up their fake restaurant and serve pre-processed “shit-foods” to an audience who then willingly rates their powdered…
It's nothing new, as a large group of people are raised with the values that believing is better than knowing. It's the core of every religion. As long as we accept religion, we tell people that it's ok to just believe whatever someone says or writes, instead of employing some critical thinking, and demanding facts,
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Re: ‘The Shed at Dulwich’ was London’s top-rated restaurant. It didn’t exist
#20These things, while fun, are frankly rather scary to me. They show us how far society has moved away from truth, in our value of other people’s opinions, rather than the institutions that actually factcheck before they spread false information. If you watch the vidio in the vice article, they even open up their fake restaurant and serve pre-processed “shit-foods” to an audience who then willingly rates their powdered…
Social Proof [1] in action. I'm always shocked at how much faith people put into anonymous review sites. Really? You're going to believe a bunch of strangers on how good something is, and actually spend money based on this belief? It's a marketer's wet dream. You don't need to actually prove a claim anymore: You only need to spin up enough sock puppets shouting about it, and people will substitute that for proof.