Review Bombing

Synonyms:
See also:	trolling, Fan Campaign, Racism in Fandom, Homophobia in Fandom, Transphobia in Fandom, Misogyny and Fandom
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Review bombing is when a large number of accounts (either different people or a smaller number of people with multiple sock-puppet accounts) target a reviewing system. This is usually done with the intention of trying to harm the popularity, engagement, reputation, or sales of something.

Review bombing can be targeted at any form of media or creator and come from both inside of a fandom or outside of it.

While reviewing bombing can technically happen for any reason, with media such as TV shows, films, games and books, there tend to broadly be a few main reasons seen more often:

1. Reviewing bombing in response to media having diverse casts and focusing on the story-lines of marginalised groups of people, particularly in a reboot or re-imagining of an older piece of media. There tends to be a significant amount of bigotry involved in many of these types of review campaigns.
2. Reviewing by fans of the media who disliked or are protesting to something that happened in the media, such as a character arc, character death or particular story-line. This can be as part of fan campaign that goes beyond just reviews.
3. Reviewing by people who are protesting or campaigning against something bigger than the media alone and large amounts of negative reviews are one method of this approach.

Preferred targets are aggregators of reviews which are public facing and which do not have a barrier beyond creating an account to leaving negative reviews. Steam, Metacritic, Rotten Tomatoes, Goodreads, Amazon, and IMDb have all had multiple attempts at review bombing on their platforms, though some have seen a reduction since implementing measures to curb it.

What does review bombing look like?

Not every instance of a larger number of negative reviews is review bombing. However, there are some patterns that may indicate review bombing is happening.

• A large number of the lowest rating (e.g. 1* or 0/10) reviews in a short space of time.
• Reviews happening either before the media in question is released or so soon afterwards that it is unlikely everyone finished watching or playing it.
• It noticeably skews the pattern of the reviews from what would usually be expected. For example, in a 10* rating system there would be an expected distribution from 2*-9*, then a large peak at 1*. There may also be a disproportionately high number of 10s if fans attempted to counter-act the negative reviews.

• If there are reviewer accounts, the reviewers may have few other reviews or they only review negatively on media which shares similarities (for example, TV shows with diverse casts).
• Written negative reviews may reference topics not related to the quality of the media or are in bad faith.
  • Every media has people who dislike it and valid criticisms to be made. What many review bombings often leans on, though, is arguments made in bad faith. Complaints about “rewriting history”, “SJW concepts”, “wokeness”, “unnecessarily inclusion” or other similar concepts tend to be amongst the most noticeable.
• For games or books in places like Amazon or Steam, the reviewers were not verified as having purchased the item.
• Outside of the reviews themselves, there may be posts on social media encouraging others to leave negative reviews on a larger scale as a means of expressing their displeasure.

Aims

Some review-bombers aim to just express their complaints about the media existing with no additional goals; however, with the increased use of algorithms in online spaces has come a growing belief among fan-bases that review bombing may impact the reach of the particular product in question. Other people think that a larger number of negative reviews and a low rating will lead to a streaming service or network pulling or cancelling a show, or the producers or creators making changes in line with the wants of the reviewers.

The desired outcome of review bombing is to reduce viewership by making casual visitors to these sites believe that the audience hates the movie or series. A secondary goal is to undermine the aggregated critics’ score so it seems as if critics are completely out of sync with mainstream audiences (which, arguably sometimes they are, but the motives of review bombers are more pernicious). A third, possibly unexpected accomplishment, is to drum up so much negative controversy, conversation and arguing on social media that an average viewer who knows little to nothing about the property, but might otherwise check it out based on a trailer or poster, avoids the whole thing because there’s too much drama around it.

Glenn Sanders

When fans of the media are posting negative reviews in large numbers in response to events in the canon, the aim tends to be more about is letting the people writing and running the show know that fans were displeased with a direction taken, discouraging some story-lines and encouraging others. One well known example of this in fandom spaces, which the moved onto focusing about the wider issue of LGBT characters being killed off in media, is the LGBT Fans Deserve Better campaign that came out of the death of Lexa on The 100.

However, in some instances, things such as headcanons and fanon, accusations of queerbaiting, ship wars and other fandom discourse and drama are more likely to come into play. With that can also come the hope that it will lead to changes to the canon in line with what the reviewers want.

When review bombing in protest to something bigger than the media, such as something the creator of the media in question has done, the aims tend to be more about getting attention to the issue being campaigned about or protested against. The desired outcomes of that increased attention are varied.

Does it work?

Sometimes, but more often due to accompanying activities outside of the reviewing itself.

In terms of video games, Steam Spy have previously released statistics to demonstrate that it either has no impact on video games sales or can have in the inverse effect by drawing attention to a game that wasn’t on people’s radars previously. Sales and other earnings, ratings, or views on films and TV shows which have been review bombed do not appear to have taken a substantial hit and the production teams behind many films and TV shows now anticipate review bombing and related backlash, putting plans in place to minimise the impact.

When it comes to cancellations, it's difficult to find anything to confirm that review bombing and related activities have a significant impact. The reasons for whether shows get renewed or cancelled, and the metrics of what is considered 'successful' are often unknown even to the show runners, especially on streaming services. However, poor ratings are often referenced amidst cancellation news and this has led to the fandoms of media that get hit with review bombing responding with floods of positive reviews to bring the score back up.

i'm making this post because i'm tired of lesbians and other sapphics having to watch show after show get cancelled. currently, a league of their own (which is based on a movie from the 90s) is getting bombed with negative reviews because of homophobes saying that they made it woke. so, please, i ask that you read below the cut because this could be another new favorite show for you, and we need the views and positive reviews to keep it afloat.

lokielly at Tumblr

Activities that happen alongside the review campaigns, however, certainly do have an impact. The aforementioned LGBT Fans Deserve Better only had review bombing of the episode where Lexa died as one small part of the campaigning they did, and it was the rest of their work that appears to have had a tangible impact on how many LGBT (particularly sapphic) characters are killed in TV shows.

Additionally, alongside floods of negative reviews, people will sometimes actively harass those involved with the media, whether that's cast, crew, authors, or other creators. They may also target and harass fans of the media. Bigoted harassment has driven many people involved with media off of social media, impacted their mental and physical health, and even led to people feeling suicidal or attempting suicide.

As a result, what tends to have more impact is when review bombing directly affects an individual, such as in the case of YouTubers, other streamers, indie game developers, and smaller authors. Within fandom spaces, calls to target particular authors on spaces like Archive of Our Own or FanFiction.Net with mass negative comments on their fanworks can easily be interpreted as a form of review bombing. While it tends to be on a smaller scale than the review campaigns against mainstream media, the fact that a single person is being targeted means smaller numbers can have a significant impact and cause harm to the individual on the receiving end. When large amounts of negative reviews are aimed at small creators, it often moves into harassment much quicker than when it is aimed at TV shows or other mainstream media.

Fan Commentary

Ok so I’m not particularly excited about this show but this highlights something that pisses me off a lot: Every time there is a female-led Marvel work, it ends up getting review bombed and downvoted right out the gate. It happened to Captain Marvel, it happened to Ms. Marvel, and it’s happening to She-Hulk. Don’t even get me started on Lightyear, which I guarantee got downvoted not because of its overall lackluster quality but because there’s a half-second gay kiss and people who aren’t white as leads. This sort of shit is why the “Critics wrong, audiences right” attitude frustrates me, because sometimes the audience is a bunch of miserable cunts who think anyone who isn’t a straight white man existing in a film makes it woke.

wonderfulworldofmichaelford at Tumblr

9-1-1 twt is so nasty and negative fr. Grow up why are you all review bombing this episode???

It was great and even if it’s not your favorite it doesn’t deserve a 1 star.

Edit: if you haven’t please go leave a review on imdb! We got it from a 6.5 to a 7.2 finally

kissmeaboutit at Tumblr

Its always a good time to remember that captain marvel hate stems from misogyny. idc what u think about brie as a person, or the fact that cap marvel was funded by the dod (bc a lot of mcu films have military/govt propaganda) but backlash began when brie went on record and said she's tired of the lack of diversity/she was always interviewed by white males. the film was review bombed before it even hit the screens and by 8 AM on opening day there was over 58k negative reviews bringing the audience score down to 33%. carol danvers was criticized for not SMILING enough, having cold, sarcastic line delivery (something tony and other male "funny men" in the mcu are praised for), and being too "powerful" despite being infused with an actual infinity stone. to this day it is called the mcu's worst movie and hating it excessively is a widespread fandom trait.

imposterogers at Tumblr

Some Examples

Examples Wanted: Editors are encouraged to add more examples or a wider variety of examples.

especially some more within fandom acts in response to canon/wider events, and those targeting the comments/reviews sections on fanworks.

Star Wars: The Last Jedi – Rotten Tomatoes was hit by a wave of negative reviews for the film, despite it being well received amongst critics. Various groups on social media platforms made claims of creating bots or organising people together specifically to leave masses of negative reviews, complaining about “forced inclusion”, for having female, Black, and Latino lead characters. The racism and misogyny in the Star Wars fandom is well documented.

Captain Marvel – In 2019, Captain Marvel was a very widely publicised occurrence of review bombing when people left scathing reviews ahead of the film’s release, complaining about Brie Larson and largely stemming from an interview where she talked about wanting to see more diversity in journalism. It led to Rotten Tomatoes having to implement measures to prevent future events, including prevent reviews ahead of release and exercising options to remove bad faith reviews. Other platforms followed their lead.

Ms Marvel – When Ms. Marvel aired on Disney+ in 2022, the show was review bombed shortly after the premiere. This meant that it ended up as one of the best-reviewed MCU series from critics with the lowest user start ratings on IMDb. Racism and islamophobia certainly played a role in the review bombing, as the show’s lead is a Muslim Pakistani girl and complaints referencing her race and religions were common amongst the negative reviews.

A League of Their Own – The reboot series of the film focused primarily on women and the queer and Black communities in the 1940s. A large number of negative reviews about the show were posted shortly after it aired on Amazon Prime, complaining about the diversity in the show and how it was implying that only queer women could be strong and player sports. Creator, Abbie Jacobson, addressed the bigotry on social media and pointed out that the backlash was the reason the show needed to be made.

The 100 - Episode 3x07 was hit with a large amount of negative reviews following Lexa's death, encouraged within the fandom as one small part of a call to action which later led to the LGBT Fans Deserve Better campaign.

9-1-1: The season six finale was review bombed, encouraged in some social media spaces, when fans were disappointed by the way events played out. A number of these complaints were that fanon juggernaut pairing Buddie (Buck/Eddie) did not go canon and instead were paired off with women in a series finale that viewers claimed felt like a show finale. The show was cancelled by FOX and moved to ABC for season seven, pending post-strike action.

Percy Jackson and the Olympians – Due to restrictions on reviews being placed before shows air, this pending TV adaptation has not so far received any reviews. However, given the horrific racist abuse directed at Leah Jeffries, who was cast as Annabeth, and the large number of complaints on social media about the direction the TV series will be taking, this TV series will likely be another target for review bombing.