The Dust-Up: You’re Buying Into a Vibe – John Watson

After a conversation with Miguel about reviewing bikes last year, John decided it was worth jotting down a few notes on how bike reviews and opinions drive consumerism. Those notes morphed into an op-ed piece, so he decided to lay it all out in a Dust-Up that we can refer to in the future. His sentiments are simple but need saying: No actual review is objective. They’re all subjective. It’s a matter of how you frame your vibe…

In Michael Easter’s book Scarcity Brain: Fix Your Craving Mindset and Rewire Your Habits to Thrive with Enough, the author discusses consumerism and his practice of reading a review before making any purchase. This habit became an obsession for the author during the COVID pandemic. Oftentimes, he’d read a review out of boredom and end up buying a product he wasn’t even shopping for.

Oftentimes, he felt like his purchase didn’t align with his needs in the end. Luckily, the resale economy is perched at about a 7% year over year growth, so he was able to sell these products second-hand. What Easter realized – and to be honest, one of the things we’ve always tried to communicate over here at The Radavist – is that reviews are always subjective.

For example, if a restaurant reviewer prefers a speedy meal, they could visit a café and say the food service was slow. Meanwhile, someone who prefers a slower dining experience might find it ideal.

When I travel, I look at Google reviews for coffee shops and find the shops that look like they might fit the bill, reading the 3-star reviews that complain the “coffee took too long.” Because I know a good pour-over takes time, with a queue, you could wait up to 20 minutes for a coffee. But for me, the coffee experience and taste are part of my patronage. I don’t mind waiting. I’m not in a hurry.

So what does this have to do with bikes? I’ll get to that shortly.

Objectivity is a Myth

Robert McDowell Parker Jr. is a now-retired wine critic who disdained the verbose, gatekeeping vibes of traditional wine reviews, so he created his own rating system that the general public could understand. His system ranked wines on a scale of 1-100, with a few wines reaching the 9…