Why are shows like Starfleet Academy and Shrinking flooded with one-star reviews? The answer may reveal less about television—and more about the psychology of culture wars.
Genuine question: How do we decide when a show is being ‘review bombed’ Vs being actually just disliked? The article doesn’t really give any evidence of this claim. (To be clear, I’m not saying it’s not being, just need a little bit more than ‘I personally enjoy it, therefore the negative reviews must be bad faith’, which seems to be most of what I see).
Genuine question: How do we decide when a show is being ‘review bombed’ Vs being actually just disliked? The article doesn’t really give any evidence of this claim. (To be clear, I’m not saying it’s not being, just need a little bit more than ‘I personally enjoy it, therefore the negative reviews must be bad faith’, which seems to be most of what I see).
The “audience score” being significantly lower than the critic score is a red flag.
The “political alignment” (for lack of a better term) of the show needs to be considered, given that the tactic is a right-wing favourite.
The number of “reviews” that appear in a very short span of time could be telling.
The tone and quality of the discourse on platforms like Twitter could be informative, as well.
But yeah, it’s one of those things that can’t really be proven with the data available to the layperson.