That Is All

Dear Yelp,

How’s it going? Ya hangin’ in there, buddy? I’ve been hearing all sorts of terrible things about you on the Internet—you’re in a “death spiral,” according to Forbes—and I just wanted you to know that I’ve been there. Well, sort of. I’ll never feel the pain of my stock price cratering by 75 percent in a little over a year, nor have I been the subject of forthcoming documentary about what an unrepentant dick I am that raised $60,000 on Kickstarter in just 11 days. But I do know what it’s like to have strangers talk trash about me and the various places at which I’ve been employed.

You know how I know? Because you've given them a platform, and for that reason I no longer give two shits about what happens to you and your glorified comment board for mouth-breathing tourists with too much time on their hands.

Don't get me wrong—we've had some good times. Remember the time you helped me find a gas station with a semifunctioning espresso machine in the forsaken wasteland of southern Wyoming? Or that time in Topeka, Kan., when you helped me find the Westboro Baptist Church so I could leave a rainbow-colored dildo in the yard? All top-notch experiences made possible by you doing what you do best, which is providing location-based guidance to the best stuff around. It's no surprise your services make you worth $3.5 billion, but I can't help but wonder why you've let yourself degenerate into a billionaire broker of anonymous shit-talking?

You're probably wondering why I am choosing to remain anonymous in this correspondence. Though I agree the shroud of anonymity brings out the absolute worst in people—with the comments section of this very article likely being a prime example—my job is already hard enough without incredulous Yelpers attaching a face to the cold, hard truth of why they're completely out of place in Portland. I'm a member of the service industry, you see.

Although my employers have grown to understand the process by which irate customers shake them down for gift cards from the comfort of the Internet because my music was too loud or the air conditioning was too cold—instead of just saying something like a reasonable human being—the idea of arming yokels who still use AOL email accounts with the ability to get me fired because I didn't apologize for not having free refills on soup like their favorite joint back home is both terrifying and infuriating. 

Though this fine city swells with pride every time its restaurants are praised among elite foodies and parachute journalists, people can’t help but glom on to the idea that our five-star cuisine is sullied by two-star “hipster service,” as your legions of Elites and Scouts and Ninjas and whatever the fuck other titles you assign to your unpaid staff of writers love to point out.

While doughy doofuses with iPhones clipped to their Haggars love to run around this hipster theme park of a city we've found ourselves living in, they act surprised when they approach the bar or counter of a place in the middle of Yelp's "hipster heat map" and the young lady with the tattoos and the septum ring behind the counter—germane details to reviews of their "Portland experience"—informs them the water is self-serve and their toddler has to go because of OLCC requirements.

"She gave me a look when I asked for the Wi-Fi password!" Steve from Walnut Creek, Calif., will say. Well, no shit, Steve, you're at a bar.

"The wait was 45 minutes! They made me wait outside!" says Heidi from Battle Creek, Mich. At Screen Door, on a Sunday? You don't say!

I admit, I've had some terrible service while living here. I once waited 20 minutes at an outdoor table in 97-degree heat before being acknowledged by a server at a James Beard Award-winning restaurant. But rather than help fuel your extortion racket, I just wrote an email to management telling them exactly what happened. That worked out very well.

I was already inclined to find rather dubious any site that folks use to rate the Lloyd District Applebee's. The fact that you hired an inside man in D.C. to lobby for a change in libel law that will protect said users from being sued by the restaurants they lambast for the dumbest of reasons gives me little reason anymore to believe what you're offering is doing more good than harm. So the next time I find myself in the hinterlands of rural America, I'll use Google Maps to find myself a decent cup of coffee or a place to grab a bite to eat. There were good times, Yelp, but I just can't trust you anymore.

That is all. 

WWeek 2015