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Meh and the Mundane Sublime
- idlewords 17y agoThis starts off as a somewhat dull Netflix rant, but turns into a sublime masterpiece of drivel: 'While "meh" may seem to imply disapproval or disinterest, it is actually a sophisticated response of veneration, a celebration of something's ability to be a part of the anonymous formlessness philosopher Jean-Luc Nancy calls "whatever."'
- paulgerhardt 17y agoI wouldn't call that drivel- obtuse maybe. I think the reality is it's important to care about how many of the eyeballs who watch your movie, listen to your talk, or try out your new product are glazed. That is the percent of people who bothered to respond vs. the total number who responded. With Netflix (or IMDB reviews) I would rather watch a polarizing film where the majority of viewers felt they needed to voice their praise or disgust than one that illicits a non-response.
- ctkrohn 17y agoIf I'm not mistaken, the Netflix recommendation algorithm corrects for this effect by normalizing the scores. For example, suppose you're a movie cynic. The most you'll ever rate a movie is 3; suppose your average rating is a 2. Someone else might rate movies from 3. to 5 with an average rating of 4. From the recommendation engine's point of view, the cynic's 2 rating is equivalent to the other person's rating of 4. Thus the algorithm corrects for different notions of "average."