The typical audience of an Amazon Review are the customers who wish to buy a product, but want to check up on what others who previously purchased such product thought of it. Reviews offer “proof” of whether the advertisements are really true or not, or if the quality of a product is as good as it seems. The “customer review” genre generally entails a paragraph or two explaining a customer’s experience with the product, how he got to buy it, pros and cons of it, and a final recommendation on whether to buy it fast or check other options first. The reviews are aimed at informing future customers about their experiences so that other customers can make better decisions about their purchases.
I chose to analyze the review of Tuscan Dairy Milk titled “What do you mean I can’t bring my milk???”
The review was written by Kevin and features a short, humorous anecdote about being held up at the security gate by a TSA officer because he had a gallon of milk in his luggage. He is forced to throw out his nail clippers and the milk. However, although Kevin discards the nail clippers with ease, saying, “That’s alright, they sell them for a dollar at the store next to my departure gate,” he refuses to do the same with the Tuscan milk, choosing instead to “drink it now…the entire gallon…while the people behind me grew increasingly impatient.” His actions suggest that the Tuscon Milk is so irresistible he cannot let it go to waste, preferring to chug it down in its entirety at such a place. Kevin also ridicules the 3-ounce rule for liquids to glorify the gallon of milk, saying he did not know that “Tuscan Whole Milk was so powerful [that it could potentially bring down a plane].” Of course, the audience knows the truth—Tuscan Whole Milk cannot bring down any plane. But they get a kick out of Kevin’s sarcasm. His humor helps connect himself—a random reviewer—with the readers in order to make a point. He also writes with a strong hook. Rather than saying something trite as “in this review, I will…”, he starts off in media res, “I approached the Airport Security Gate and fed my bags into the x-ray machine.”
Kevin’s review targets the same audience of Amazon customers, but in a different way. His review is not as much informative as it is humorous, eye-catching, witty, and sarcastic. In other words, it belongs more to the “creative” genre than the “informative, review-style” genre; satire rather than analysis. From paragraph spacing to set his sentences apart in a distinct way to narrating his story, his review stands out from many others and most likely succeeds at catching the eyes of other customers online. Other than that, Kevin’s review is also targeted at the occasional, bored reader who scrolls through the reviews looking for something interesting; Kevin’s review does not focus on the “important” aspects of Tuscan Whole Milk—taste, color, quality, freshness, etc.—but instead on the story and wit, further reinforcing the point that his review is more of a creative than an analytical piece.
Good overview of the typical product review genre at the beginning of this post. Interesting textual analysis of the milk vs the nail clippers. The last two sentences of your post show particularly strong analysis.
ReplyDeleteI would ask you to think further about if the audience is the same as that of a "normal" or typical Amazon review. Because the review you chose is more creative and witty, do you think the audience might extend to people who don't normally read Amazon reviews?
Grade: Check