4 ms·

Why do people take that site seriously? Just look at its name - "Rotten Tomatoes". It was always meant to be a parody website, not for actual reviews.

wcarss 5y ago
It seems like you might not understand the purpose of the website, and have made an assumption based on the name. Rotten Tomatoes is not a satire or joke site, it is just a review-aggregator, like metacritic is for videogames. It boils media down to 2 metrics: the % of positive reviews by actual critics, and a % of positive response from audiences. I'm not certain how the audience score is calculated, but the review score is pretty simple. It's also a more interesting metric than just a mean score (which is hard to calculate anyway, given the mix of thumbs up/stars/bags of popcorn out there in professional reviews), because a middling-score actually indicates differences of opinion about a movie, i.e. that many critics said good things overall, and many said bad things. That kind of split may point to a movie actually having a unique perspective or feature!
- soylentcola 5y ago
  I mainly use it to surface interesting things I might have missed otherwise. I generally disregard anything with an abysmal rating since it indicates just about everyone had a negative opinion. Likewise, if both critics and audience are 90% or more positive, I might just check it out, even if it's not in my usual "wheelhouse". The rest is just finding interesting movies/shows that would otherwise fly under my radar.
- dancemethis 5y ago
  No, they don't understand the purpose of the name. It will always be a satire and a joke in the heart of the individual who will others well.
  - nonameiguess 5y ago
    I'm not sure why you think that. The name comes from a (probably apocryphal) story about how the audience at Shakespeare's Globe Theatre would throw rotten tomatoes at the cast of plays they didn't enjoy. It's industry jargon for a bad review.
  - antifa 5y ago
    Feel free to explain instead of assert.

wcarss 5y ago

It seems like you might not understand the purpose of the website, and have made an assumption based on the name. Rotten Tomatoes is not a satire or joke site, it is just a review-aggregator, like metacritic is for videogames. It boils media down to 2 metrics: the % of positive reviews by actual critics, and a % of positive response from audiences. I'm not certain how the audience score is calculated, but the review score is pretty simple. It's also a more interesting metric than just a mean score (which is hard to calculate anyway, given the mix of thumbs up/stars/bags of popcorn out there in professional reviews), because a middling-score actually indicates differences of opinion about a movie, i.e. that many critics said good things overall, and many said bad things. That kind of split may point to a movie actually having a unique perspective or feature!

soylentcola 5y ago
I mainly use it to surface interesting things I might have missed otherwise. I generally disregard anything with an abysmal rating since it indicates just about everyone had a negative opinion. Likewise, if both critics and audience are 90% or more positive, I might just check it out, even if it's not in my usual "wheelhouse". The rest is just finding interesting movies/shows that would otherwise fly under my radar.
dancemethis 5y ago
No, they don't understand the purpose of the name. It will always be a satire and a joke in the heart of the individual who will others well.
- nonameiguess 5y ago
  I'm not sure why you think that. The name comes from a (probably apocryphal) story about how the audience at Shakespeare's Globe Theatre would throw rotten tomatoes at the cast of plays they didn't enjoy. It's industry jargon for a bad review.
- antifa 5y ago
  Feel free to explain instead of assert.