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Diversion: 'The Shed At Dulwich' Fake Restaurant Becomes TripAdvisor's #1 In London
.
Here's a fun article about a guy who set up a fake restaurant to see if he could game TripAdvisor's ranks.
To his surprise, he rose from over 18,000 in rank to Number 1 in London.
https://www.vice.com/en_uk/article/434gqw/i-made-my-shed-the-top-rated-restaurant-on-tripadvisor?utm_campaign=sharebutton
Once upon a time, long before I began selling my face by the acre for features on VICE dot com, I worked other jobs. There was one in particular that really had an impact on me: writing fake reviews on TripAdvisor. Restaurant owners would pay me £10 and I'd write a positive review of their place, despite never eating there. Over time, I became obsessed with monitoring the ratings of these businesses. Their fortunes would genuinely turn, and I was the catalyst.
This convinced me that TripAdvisor was a false reality – that the meals never took place; that the reviews were all written by other people like me. However, they're not, of course – they're almost all completely genuine. And there was one other factor that seemed impossible to fake: the restaurants themselves. So I moved on.
And then, one day, sitting in the shed I live in, I had a revelation: within the current climate of misinformation, and society's willingness to believe absolute bullshit, maybe a fake restaurant is possible? Maybe it's exactly the kind of place that could be a hit?
This convinced me that TripAdvisor was a false reality – that the meals never took place; that the reviews were all written by other people like me. However, they're not, of course – they're almost all completely genuine. And there was one other factor that seemed impossible to fake: the restaurants themselves. So I moved on.
And then, one day, sitting in the shed I live in, I had a revelation: within the current climate of misinformation, and society's willingness to believe absolute bullshit, maybe a fake restaurant is possible? Maybe it's exactly the kind of place that could be a hit?
Plenty of pics show just how far people can convince themselves that something is great!
This is reminiscent of a Penn & Teller Bullshit! episode, where they set up a fake restaurant and gave patrons garden hose water and hyped it with a "Water Steward" that would pitch numerous exotic water sources... all being from the garden hose out back.
Needless to say, everyone loved the water, and described it with various mineral traits that didn't exist.
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