Yelp me yelp you

Over my many years, I’ve acquired quite the list of pet peeves. People who hold their mug of coffee with two hands cupped like they’re ravenously scooping fresh water from an oasis after several days walking through the desert, small animals who look me dead in the eyes like they’re challenging me, the term pet peeve, the list goes on and on. I could probably fill up an entire post with this crap, and maybe I’ll do that at a later date when I’m completely out of material. You have that to look forward to. But for now I’d like to talk about the peeviest of all my peeves, yelp.com. I hate you, yelp.com. I hate you so hard.

For those of you with your heads up your ass, yelp is a website where everyday people (just like you and me!) can go to write reviews about local businesses. In theory, this website would help us poor, confused consumers as we search for places to eat burgers and get manicures and buy power tools. But in practice, just like pretty much everything else internet related (except Popular Science) yelp.com is just a platform for d-bags to plant their d-bag seeds in our eyeballs. Then those seeds travel to our brains and take root in our amygdala where they grow and grow unchecked; and if there is just enough exposure to Axe Body Spray and various programs on E!, we are in danger of becoming d-bags ourselves. I know a guy who knows a guy who became a d-bag from too much yelp. This is an epidemic. I’m terrified.

I bet he still picks the one the waitress doesn’t recommend

In all seriousness, it boils down to two types of people contributing to this joke of a website: self-important people who think what they say is very important to everyone everybody listen to me please right now because I am the most important person in this room or any room ever AND angry, entitled morons. The internets be filled with people who write and think they can write and think they are the next freaking F. Scott Fitzgerald. And before you say it – YES I AM ONE OF THEM. I write a blog because obviously I believe that I have something to say that other people might want to read instead of say, sticking a fork into a light socket. But I’m just trying to make people laugh. What’s this guy doing:

“I hope the owner reads this, makes changes and keeps the overall theme of the place.  We are desperate for fun new places…and this place certainly has the potential.   Step one:  Fire the chef or whomever picked the food choices/tastes!”

I bet the owner in question read that 600 word heap of crap and immediately got on the horn to fire the chef. Fire them all! They all deserve to writhe in hellfire and damnation for eternity for your bad meatballs! I mean, not everyone knows how to use “whomever” correctly in a sentence like that guy does. Then there’s this rube:

I will never go back and I have made sure to tell all of my friends and family to do the same.

Man I’m sure glad I’m not a member of his friends and family circle, because I generally like to make my own decisions. Hey guys, family meeting. Crazy Uncle Larry has blacklisted yet another small business in our metro area. So now we’re down to one place to eat food for now and no places to do anything else. It’s just a matter of time before we all starve to death. May God have mercy on our souls. Here’s my favorite:

Pity my partner’s Shrimp Scampi were dead, as they no doubt would have enjoyed swimming around in their vast garlic butter reservoir as though performing in a nightmarish gustatory ballet (Prawn Lake).

Is this for realz? Had the rest of the review been written in a light-hearted sort of fashion, I probably would’ve been able to laugh at this (he’s using big words and big words are usually funny.) But nay, homeboy is serious. And he’s probably also a hoot at parties. Gustav, shall we discuss Hunter S. Thompson, mustache wax, which county in France produces the finest brie, or how you think everything mainstream is drivel? On second thought, let me drown myself in this vast garlic butter reservoir so I never have to listen to you speak ever again ever. If too much garlic butter is wrong, Mr. Wordsmith, then I NEVER want to be right.