Amazon Comedy
March 28, 2010 10:03 PM   Subscribe

Amazon Comedy
We made a site to collect all the best funny/parody Amazon reviews (e.g. Uranium Ore, Tuscan Whole Milk, etc.) In fact, doing "research" for the site we realized there's an ad hoc community who've been posting parody, facetious or just plain caustic reviews for years. Users can submit their own, vote and comment on the reviews. Enjoy

We're still ironing out the kinks, so constructive criticism is welcome :)
posted by crayz (9 comments total) 1 user marked this as a favorite

Is there an RSS feed for the site?
posted by JeremiahBritt at 11:05 PM on March 28, 2010


Not yet, but we'll probably get one put up today. I'm doing some code cleanup and going to re-jigger the sub-menus so you can see the reviews sorted chronologically. Probably any of the main pages will support feeds, but grabbing one from the chronological page will likely be what you're looking for
posted by crayz at 1:07 AM on March 29, 2010


OK, atom feeds are now available. If you just toss http://gelastik.com/reviews into your feed reader it should be able to work out the rest (I tested w/ Google reader)
posted by crayz at 4:04 AM on March 29, 2010


I am sure you've seen the whole Henry Raddick thing.
posted by cjorgensen at 6:48 AM on March 29, 2010


Hah, fantastic!

It seems there is some gaming of the items for sale, too. For example: Tuscan Whole Milk, 1 Gallon, 128 fl oz:
*$192.99 - NEW CONDITION! The lid has only been removed once so I could let a potential buyer smell it. Also, I daubed some behind my ears before I went on the best date of my life. OTHERWISE BRAND NEW CONDITION, undrunk.

* $2,499.00 - will hand deliver, then come in and make you a Tiramisu with product in your kitchen

* $2,500.00 - Includes live cow on front porch for the duration of milk delivery. May include sound of one or more "moo" noises. After deliver, I'll enter your home to bake you a delicious batch of chocolate chip cookies.
posted by filthy light thief at 11:27 AM on March 29, 2010


I am going to give this a tentative vote. I really like stuff like this, but I have two issues with this site.

1. It diminishes the jokes when they are gathered (IMHO).
2. The color choices and fonts are ugly.

As to 1: to me coming across one of these pages all on your own, or having it sent to you "virally" makes the joke funnier. I've seen most of these previously. I am not sure if they will have the same impact if I go to the amazonLOLZ site that they have when a friend says, "Dude, The Wolves Shirt!"

As to 2: The body font is blocky and a bit small and kinda ugly. Also, I hate the orange. I also know I am no designer, so I feel like a hypocrite even mentioning this. My design skills suck. I just think this could be better presented.

Anyway, that's my $0.02.
posted by cjorgensen at 4:19 PM on March 29, 2010


Thanks for the feedback, cjorgensen. Neither of us has any design experience either, and while we like how the site looks, it's a bit hard to know what the average person's reaction will be. We're going to troll around for some more feedback and we'll make changes if it's a recurring comment

As for point 1, I definitely agree, but it seems unavoidable. The ones we put up to start the site off are mostly stuff from memory, but there's to be actually quite a lot of more obscure ones scattered throughout Amazon (with varying levels of teh funny), and so on balance the somewhat diminished humor value seems outweighed by getting them in front of more eyeballs (at least, that's the premise ... whether it's true we'll find out :) )

(also, Amazon does haphazardly yank some of the more blatantly fake reviews, so if nothing else having them archived externally seems worthwhile. RIP oozinator reviews)
posted by crayz at 10:12 PM on March 29, 2010


RIP oozinator reviews

The Consumerist and friends to the rescue.
posted by filthy light thief at 9:45 AM on March 30, 2010


I like the content, but please please consider different color choices - the orange, brown and blue (to my eyes) clash terribly.

This entry is fantastic though:

This connection isn't sound. If my calculations are correct, it should be sometime around 2007 for whomever is reading this. DO NOT USE THESE CABLES. Something... happens with them
posted by Think_Long at 4:14 PM on March 30, 2010


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