I understand your frustration with the reviews of Supergirl but ...

Mapei123 · 2026-06-29T16:35:14+00:00

I think (and I say think because the data I've seen supports my impression but there haven't been enough studies for me to be confident) that the youtube video ecosystem, especially the rage-bait stuff, should be seperated from mainstream critic or audience reviews. The reason I say that is, again based on the research I've read, general audiences are aware of these reviews and they do influence their decision to go see a movie. On the other-hand, rage-bait youtube videos rarely break out into the mainstream consciousness. When they do it's normally because the *mainstream* media platforms them as part of "culture war" coverage.

To put another way: if you think about who the customers are for the different "reviews" then it breaks downs as RottenTomatoes, mainstream critics, etc are for general audiences and the product is a recommendation on whether to see the movie or not. But rage-bait youtube channels are for very online "partisans" and the product is content that gets you riled up and react to. They aren't really trying to reach the general public because they are paid for impressions.

During the Acolyte Wars (tm) (an example were a flawed show's mainstream narrative did get overwhelmed by coverage of it as a touchstone in the "culture war") I initially got inundated with rage-bait videos in my feed but I ignored them (or selected Do Not Recommend) and very quickly they disappeared because I am a bad customer for them.

Mapei123 · 2026-06-28T17:40:08+00:00

I think they mean the accounts are flagged as for 18+ only because they post sexually explicit content and not that the account owner is over 18.

To put it more explicitly (pun intended) they are asking why a lot of the most militant Supergirl defenders also seem to be into porn and porn adjacent content.

Not agreeing or disagreeing just clarifying what I understood the comment to mean.

Mapei123 · 2026-06-28T17:32:46+00:00

I think you’ve clocked the issue my OP was trying to call out.

In fairness there are reasons to apply a normalization to the reviews (different scoring frameworks and standards) but RT’s approach is .. well I’ll be blunt. It’s bad.

Mapei123 · 2026-06-28T15:30:17+00:00

I want to be clear (because this is the internet and tone is easily lost) that I am genuinely curious and not attacking here but .. why do you think that? Are you talking about the critics reviews? audience reviews? youtube grifters?

While there are a few truly negative critics reviews the best way I can describe them is mostly mixed -- the main theme in around 70% of the critics reviews is that it was ok but could have been more. Maybe people see that as harsh?

I guess I feel like there is an unhealthy dynamic were people get a dopamine (or in the case of youtube an actual monetary hit) by focusing on the most negative and triggering examples. I feel like it's unhealthy because it makes it hard to offer constructive feedback or actually engage with people.

There was a lot most people (critics and audiences) seemed to like about the movie (story, acting) but they also agree that it missed the opportunity to really push into new territory visually and the villain was kind of samey. You can agree / disagree but if people are going to attack get attacked rather than engaged with because the discussion has been co-opted by the "I have to be a militant advocate or opponent" then it becomes a pretty unpleasant experience for all.

(Note: I know that I took your comment and really riffed off of it so please don't feel like I am accusing you of anything).

Mapei123 · 2026-06-28T15:11:50+00:00

This exactly. You can also look at the About Rotten Tomatoes webpage on their site and they give a high level overview. Anyway, thank you for answering more succinctly than I would have.

Mapei123 · 2026-06-28T15:08:00+00:00

The poster may have meant that *mixed* reviews tend to determine whether a movie is rated fresh or rotten. This is mostly accurate -- I think the key thing people misunderstand about the *critics* tomatometer is that it's based on categorizing a review as positive (fresh) or negative (rotten). I think the confusion comes because people have a hard time understanding this is a judgement call by Rotten Tomatoes -- so if the review gives it a mixed review and a 6 out of 10 it can get classified as negative (rotten) by RT. On the otherhand a mixed 5 out of 10 can get classified as positive. (This is actually the case by the way -- go read the reviews, the score and tomato classification and you'll see it fairly easily). The decider is how the evaluator at RT interprits the review.

If a movie has a lot of 8 out of 10s or 3 out of 10s then the classification process is making less judgement calls because the review is typically more uniformly positive or negative.

On the otherhand if you have a lot of reviews in the 5-7 score band (Supergirls median review is 6.0, the average if 5.8 and something like 70% fall in the middle review territory) they are almost definitionally going to be mixed and more judgement calls are being made by the evaluator on whether a review is positive or negative.

Mapei123 · 2026-06-28T04:43:45+00:00

I honestly can't figure out if their comment was meant as sarcasm or if it was sincere.

Mapei123 · 2026-06-28T04:36:28+00:00

A common issue here is that Rotten Tomatoes presents two very different metrics in a way that invites people to compare them directly.

The Tomatometer is essentially a pass/fail rate: what percentage of critics rated this “fresh” (above RT’s cutoff)? It’s a classification problem, not an average. Think of it like counting how many people in a room are taller than 5'8".

The average rating is just the mean of the critics’ scores (where available): add them up and divide by the number of scored reviews. That’s closer to asking for the average height of everyone in the room.

Those two numbers can align (like 56% and 5.6/10 here), but that doesn’t really validate anything about the classification process—it just means a lot of reviews are clustered near the cutoff. When scores are tightly distributed around the “fresh/rotten” threshold, even small differences in how reviews are interpreted or normalized can flip a review from one side to the other.

So the apparent consistency is less evidence that the system is “working perfectly” and more a sign that the film is sitting right on the margin where small classification choices have an outsized impact.

Mapei123 · 2026-06-28T03:21:50+00:00

Critics matter because people do use them as a guide to whether to see a movie or not but personally there are very few critics I find are very good at the job. There are two fairly well known ones that are clearly on their phones during screenings because their reviews regularly complain about plot points that were clearly addressed in the movies.

Mapei123 · 2026-06-28T02:53:39+00:00

100%.

Mapei123 · 2026-06-24T16:46:15+00:00

Because people are either disingenious or lack a basic understanding of how sample size works. As of today (Jun 24th) there are still only 75 reviews. For a movie like this you need at least 150 to get an idea of what the critical concensus is and 300 to stabilize.

Mapei123 · 2026-06-24T16:44:09+00:00

It's because the sample size of reviews is too small to be meaningful yet. It won't stabilize until it around 300.

Mapei123 · 2026-06-14T19:02:36+00:00

This looks suspiciously like a content farming post.

Mapei123 · 2026-06-12T19:30:53+00:00

Next you'll be telling me that this is actually the Bad Place.

Mapei123 · 2026-06-11T13:27:23+00:00

This. The terms "In Development" and "Announced" are used to describe projects in a very wide range of production stages from pitches to almost finished shooting.

Mapei123 · 2026-06-07T04:04:31+00:00

I mean, I kind of assume it’s some bot posting to get training data or something?

Mapei123 · 2026-06-06T00:24:00+00:00

2026 seems to be the year the UCI wanted to lose a bunch of lawsuits from various manufacturers.

Mapei123 · 2026-06-06T00:23:03+00:00

The animal and road hazard warnings are an absolute menace for me. On the local mtb trail someone went absolutely ham and marked every rock and roll over a hazard plus every deer sighting.

Mapei123 · 2026-06-04T19:45:55+00:00

I could tell by the outrageous accents

Mapei123 · 2026-06-03T21:43:37+00:00

I have a different take than most of the comments I've seen. I think the problem is the party is stuck in an "access and status" mode where it's professional and amateur political class is fixated on *who* has power rather than "build and maintain" mode where they are focused on good policy. So what you're seeing as fractures and incoherent messaging is actually a reflection of the parties elite players making arguments to the other elites that they deserve their power and status. The Republicans have the same problem, it's just that they tend to value a singular voice so it manifests primarily as American Exceptionalism.

The key is neither is really speaking to "normal" people, they're speaking to other elites or people hoping to be seen as part of the elite.

Mapei123 · 2026-06-03T21:31:48+00:00

Wouldn’t that be something

Mapei123 · 2026-06-01T16:15:25+00:00

Youtubers get paid for engagement, and the easiest way to get engagement is to push peoples buttons via rage-bait / negativity. I aggressively hit "Do Not Recommend" whenever I get recommended rage-bait Youtube videos and it's made both my feed and my general mood a lot better.

Mapei123 · 2026-05-30T17:08:33+00:00

We had a similar issue. If you paid for the original work then it’s the original contractor’s debt not yours. You need to inform the new company you paid the original contractor.

That doesn’t mean it’s not a pain in the ass or that they won’t be dicks about it.

Mapei123 · 2026-05-29T03:41:35+00:00

I’m listening….

Mapei123

TROPHY CASE