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Pictorial Reviews

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Ludmilla
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Pictorial Reviews

Post by Ludmilla » Thu July 26th, 2012, 1:22 pm

I'm starting to hate this trend of loading reviews with lots of pictures to illustrate a point (often snarky, or funny). But what I hate even more is when the picture replaces the words. I'm finding more and more reviewers doing this at GoodReads and similar sites. It's overkill and more often than not puts me off the reviewer.

Am I alone? Do you like this trend? Maybe I'm just grumpy.

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Misfit
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Post by Misfit » Thu July 26th, 2012, 2:33 pm

I don't mind it on occasion, but it does go a bit too far at times, especially now that everyone's doing gifs and what not.
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boswellbaxter
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Post by boswellbaxter » Thu July 26th, 2012, 6:37 pm

I think it's cute, in small doses. If it starts slowing down my feed, it's irritating.
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Misfit
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Post by Misfit » Sat July 28th, 2012, 1:52 am

[quote=""boswellbaxter""]I think it's cute, in small doses. If it starts slowing down my feed, it's irritating.[/quote]

Goodreads did *fix* this problem in the feeds, with one minor flaw - if a friend (say BB) has a review filled with GIFs and whatnot, I wouldn't see those images in my feeds. If Ludmilla liked BB's review, I would see the GIFs and whatnot a the top of my review in my feeds. And that is the big problem at GR, if multiple friends *like* reviews like this, even if I'm not friends with said reviewer, I end up getting those images dumped in my feeds. One was particularly nasty, some girl in bright bright orange spinning like a top. It was 5AM. It wasn't pretty.

PS, you want too many GIFS and images, see this book.
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Post by rebecca » Sat July 28th, 2012, 3:05 am

[quote=""Misfit""]Goodreads did *fix* this problem in the feeds, with one minor flaw - if a friend (say BB) has a review filled with GIFs and whatnot, I wouldn't see those images in my feeds. If Ludmilla liked BB's review, I would see the GIFs and whatnot a the top of my review in my feeds. And that is the big problem at GR, if multiple friends *like* reviews like this, even if I'm not friends with said reviewer, I end up getting those images dumped in my feeds. One was particularly nasty, some girl in bright bright orange spinning like a top. It was 5AM. It wasn't pretty.

PS, you want too many GIFS and images, see this book.[/quote]

OK I don't 'get' the pictorial reviews and after looking at them I still don't know what the book is about???? And why is everyone going crazy over a book they haven't read yet?

Bec :confused: :)

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Mythica
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Post by Mythica » Sat July 28th, 2012, 11:29 am

[quote=""Misfit""]
PS, you want too many GIFS and images, see this book.[/quote]

I haven't noticed this with any books I've come across on GR, I didn't even know it was a problem! Maybe it's more common in certain genres? Or unreleased books?

I can't help but think it has something to do with being young adult (and romance at the same time)... most of the reviews sound like teenage girls who have grown up in this kind of culture (text speech, smiley faces, avatars, animated gifs, etc) and don't know how else to express themselves yet. When I was a teen, I doubt I could have articulated a good review. But then, they're not even reviews because it hasn't been released yet - maybe once these girls have read it, the images will be replaced by a real review?

But yeah, that's annoying.

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Ludmilla
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Post by Ludmilla » Sat July 28th, 2012, 12:56 pm

I think you'd be surprised at the ages of some of the reviewers doing this. I've noticed some bloggers are starting to go overboard with this, too. In book reviews, it does seem to be much more prevalent in YA and Romance. It reminds me of kids passing notes in school, not at all my style of communicating.

In hindsight, I probably should have called these illustrated reviews. Pictorial sounds clunky, but was the first word that popped in my head. Not sure what the masses call them.
Last edited by Ludmilla on Sat July 28th, 2012, 8:53 pm, edited 2 times in total.

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Post by Divia » Sat July 28th, 2012, 6:28 pm

Yeah, I can totally see teens going crazy with the gifs. *sigh*

I wouldn't be able to stand that crap it would drive me insane. I hate it when websites have too much flashy crap on it and it takes forever to load. Unnecessary pics would be enough for me and I wouldn't go to that site anymore.
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