11/02/2013

can you get paid to review amazon products

Well, so it goes on the internet. And as ever, the best parts of the reviews are usually the other reviewers responding to them-a discourse that is variously civil and productive and horrible and full of name-calling. In fact, as in many of these pocket universes we call Amazon Reviews Sections, in the land of On the Road there is one valiant defender who patrols the comments, letting few negative reviews pass without at least a challenge. In this case the defender's name is Carlo Tomasetti, and he appears mostly in order to respond to criticism of the book's content and themes. "What's the problem with drugs and alcohol?" he asks repeatedly. "What's the problem with living pointlessly?" Carlo Tomasetti also frequently asks people who say they hate the book to suggest others they like better; in all of the one-star reviews, only one person takes him up on it. (And that person has pretty good taste, to be fair.) This week, our irregular column of one-star Amazon reviews takes up a storied American favorite: Jack Kerouac's On the Road. Which, as it turns out, many, many people do not like. "Boring," they say. "A stupid book about irresponsible losers," they say. "If he weren't dead I would suggest a writing course," they say. "Maybe suitable for a three year old," they say. "Might as well be the characters from the 2000 classic film Road Trip," they (I) say.