I’m willing to bet that the consistently poor reception of recent cinematic flops at the box office has led major corporations to pressure a website into removing or reducing negative feedback once again.
Rotten Tomatoes is a well-known website that serves as a hub for movie and TV show reviews from both critics and, importantly, audiences, providing overall ratings through a percentage-based system to show the proportion of positive reviews.
However, in recent years, there have been instances of corporations influencing how user reception is displayed, evaluated, and curated. A notable example is YouTube’s removal of visible dislikes, initially framed as a way to “support small content creators” by addressing self-esteem concerns.
In reality, this move primarily served to suppress criticism directed at large corporations, such as Disney, which invest heavily in advertising on the platform, it also benefits developers and publishers of woke video games.
Additionally we’ve seen Crunchyroll recently remove comments from reviews, likely as a means of silencing criticism of their rampant censorship and woke localization that subverts Japanese animation and interjects Western slang or politicized babble.
Another likely reasoning behind why Crunchyroll removed review comments was due to a LGBT themed adaptation being “review bombed” by unsuspecting consumers after Crunchyroll more or less pushed such content upon them.
It’s a simple matter of life that the vast overwhelming majority of individuals are heterosexual, when a corporation “recommends” such content on front pages or in their own feeds, people aren’t going to be happy.
Speaking of anime, MyAnimeList (MAL), a major database for Japanese manga and animation that also enables users to critique and review content, made changes to its review system following the airing of Interspecies Reviewers.
The controversy stemmed from the show’s explicit content, which led to its removal from several streaming platforms like Funimation and drew significant attention and reviews from MAL users, most of which were positive.
In fact, the controversy surrounding Interspecies Reviewers, fueled by various puritans on social media calling for its cancellation, led it to become one of the highest-rated adaptations on MyAnimeList, thanks to a flood of 10/10 positive reviews. Naturally, when the so-called “chuds” appear to have won, the response is to silence the opposition and tilt the scales back.
After all, nobody wants a “pervy” or “pedophilic” anime to be touted as one of the greatest of all time, right?
To prevent spam and the creation of fake accounts to manipulate ratings, MyAnimeList began requiring users to verify their accounts. This verification process was designed to ensure that only genuine users could submit reviews and rate shows, thereby reducing the impact of “review bombing.”
Additionally, MAL introduced a rule requiring users to have watched a minimum amount of content before they could submit reviews or scores. This measure aimed to ensure that only active users with a certain level of engagement on the platform could influence ratings.
Additionally, MAL increased its moderation of reviews to “maintain quality,” implementing stricter guidelines for what counts as a valid review.
This was meant to ensure that reviews offered meaningful feedback rather than being used purely for rating manipulation. Now, it seems users are expected to write extensive essays on “media literacy” just to share their thoughts on a specific show.
Although the basic 1-10 rating scale remained unchanged, MAL modified how ratings are calculated to address anomalies and prevent sudden, drastic score changes due to coordinated efforts.
As a result, Interspecies Reviewers fell from being one of the highest-rated anime adaptations on MyAnimeList to a score of just 7.42 today, a significant drop that has relegated it to around the top 2000 in terms of ranking.
Because at the end of the day, it all comes down to the so-called need for genuine and balanced criticism. This need arises when big-budget Hollywood productions fail miserably at the box office, simply because the movies are bad.
But nothing is ever THEIR fault.
As a result, Rotten Tomatoes, one of the last remaining websites that holds any real value for reviewing, critiquing, or gauging audience reception for movies and TV shows, has had to overhaul its philosophy.
This change comes as modern moviegoers express dissatisfaction with poorly written Marvel movies that pander to feminists with “girlboss” themes and Mary Sue characters or whatever other garbage is currently being produced in this day and age. I wouldn’t know, I’ve been disenfranchised by live action productions for the past decade.
Just like with video games and the “video game journalists” who are eager to push their hypocritical queer-centric agendas onto the general public, there is often a significant gap between critic and audience reception.
If journalists rate a product highly, it’s often the case that the audience doesn’t share the same enthusiasm. However, when critics express outrage over something, it usually means that the movie is either truly awful or that the paying audience actually enjoys it.
To even the playing field so that Hollywood’s elite producers don’t feel offended, Rotten Tomatoes has replaced its traditional Audience Score with a new “verified ratings Popcornmeter” system. This new system will only take into account ratings from fans who have actually purchased tickets through Fandango.
Fandango, the company that owns Rotten Tomatoes, assures us there’s no conflict of interest here, of course.
This announcement marks the first significant change to Rotten Tomatoes since 2019, following the controversy surrounding Captain Marvel, when Rotten Tomatoes removed the audience “Want To See” feature alongside purged thousands of audience reviews for the big budget Hollywood film to raise its reception.
Now, when users visit Rotten Tomatoes, they will see the “Popcornmeter” instead of the traditional “Audience Score.”
Rotten Tomatoes has also changed how scores are displayed, now basing availability on the movie’s box office estimates. Scores will no longer be posted immediately with only a limited number of reviews or ratings. Instead, if a movie receives a rating of over 90% on the Popcornmeter, it will be labeled “Verified Hot.”
The catch is that the “verified” tag only applies to users who have purchased their tickets through Fandango.
Fandango, the movie ticketing app, is the parent company of Rotten Tomatoes. This means that if you buy your ticket through Fandango and rate a movie on Rotten Tomatoes using the same account, Rotten Tomatoes can verify that you actually bought a ticket.
This allows them to filter out anyone who might be rating the movie without having seen it, under the reasoning that only consumers who have paid to watch a movie should be allowed to review it.
Since the audience score has been completely removed for TV shows, there’s currently no way to link your Rotten Tomatoes account with Fandango. You’ll likely need accounts with both services tied to the same email address for Rotten Tomatoes to verify your purchase and allow you to review.
This also means that if you buy multiple tickets for yourself, friends, or family, only the person who purchased the tickets will be “verified” on Rotten Tomatoes. This approach significantly limits the verified audience ratings, as only one individual can provide feedback on the movie.
This change is a clear effort to combat “review bombing,” or negative criticism that may arise when fans write reviews and give ratings without having seen the film, often driven by personal bias.
Shilling journalists and their publications frequently use the term “review bombing” as a rationale for a negative audience score or a game/film’s poor performance.
However, it often seems that the box office performance aligns with the Audience Score; if a movie is poorly rated by audiences, it tends to underperform at the box office, as seen with the Borderlands movie, which recently lost $90 million.
Furiosa: A Mad Max Saga also underperformed at the box office, barely breaking even netting $168 million. It turns out that fans of the Mad Max franchise were not very interested in a film that didn’t feature Max himself. Instead, it served as a prequel to Mad Max: Fury Road, focusing on the character of Furiosa.
Furthermore, audiences were less enthusiastic about the film’s use of CGI, considering that the Mad Max series is known for its real effects, which are shot on location and were digitally composited together in the final film in the case of Fury Road.
Unlike the old Audience Score, which could be influenced by “anyone,” the Verified Hot badge only takes into account ratings from users who have demonstrated they actually saw the movie, verified by purchasing tickets through Fandango.
Rotten Tomatoes has retroactively applied this designation to over 200 films dating back to 2019, including blockbuster hits like Top Gun: Maverick, Oppenheimer, and Spider-Man: No Way Home (you can find the full list on Rotten Tomatoes).
Movies that receive a rating above 60% and at least 3.5 stars from verified users will now be labeled as “Hot,” while those below that threshold will be marked as “Stale.”
Additionally, Rotten Tomatoes has introduced new criteria for when scores appear on the Tomatometer (Critics Score) and the Popcornmeter (formerly the Audience Score).
Movies like Blue Beetle are now being promoted as “Verified Hot” by Rotten Tomatoes, boasting a “stellar” reception with a critic rating of 77% and a Popcornmeter audience score of 91% from over 2,500 verified ratings.
Despite these ratings, the film underperformed at the box office, earning only about $128 million globally, just enough to cover its budget. Although Blue Beetle is the lowest-grossing film in the DCEU, the scoring from Rotten Tomatoes seems to regard it as one of the greatest movies of all time.
The number of reviews required for a score to be displayed now depends on a film’s projected domestic box office performance. Larger budget, widely released films will need more reviews for a score to appear, while smaller, limited budget and release films will need fewer reviews.
Rotten Tomatoes asserts that the move to the Verified Ratings system and the introduction of the Verified Hot badge demonstrate their dedication to “providing trustworthy entertainment recommendations.”
However, this appears to be more about normalizing the notion that people aren’t allowed to voice their opinions. One could be a fence sitting prick about the benefits of excluding people, implying that only the views of paying customers are valid.
But in reality, you now need permission to express your opinion because too many viewpoints were dismissed as “hateful” or “evil” for simply challenging the creators’ narrative.
Consumers are tired of their escapism being dominated with excessive LGBT representation combined with poor writing that feature obvious anti-White male themes, where men are emasculated to portray women as flawless, perfect beings.
If you don’t like a product, it doesn’t deserve your money. This sentiment extends to the video game industry, which is heavily influenced by BlackRock’s ESG initiatives. However, if your opinion on a product doesn’t align with their narrative, it’s seen as a “problem” that needs to be addressed.
In the end, you can still express your negative opinions on Rotten Tomatoes, as long as you pay them first. Rotten Tomatoes claims they will expand beyond Fandango to ensure legitimate critiques from paying audiences outside of their parent company, but fundamentally, no one should have to pay to share their thoughts on a product.
Don’t fall into this trap. Making it normal to pay for the right to criticize is ridiculous, especially when much of modern media is observably garbage even at a glance.
In return for paying to criticize, developers and producers probably wouldn’t care given that they’ve already stolen your money.
The purpose of Rotten Tomatoes has now become irrelevant, as consumers are now likely to turn to social media platforms to openly criticize bad media such as movies, games and TV shows instead. By prioritizing corporate interests over honest audience feedback, Rotten Tomatoes has lost what little credibility it had remaining with the very consumers it claims to serve.
