kottke.org points to a post by Paul Bausch. Bausch recently talked to Lisa Ede, and the two of them wrestled with the question:

Or more generally, to blog a book or movie review? He offers the following three motivations:

• reputation building
• the wish to tie one's identity to a product
• philosophical exhibitionism: by this unfortunate term he means "help[ing] people organize their thoughts or simply help[ing] them feel they're contributing to the common good. If I expose my thinking (as I'm doing now), and it sparks someone else's interest, or leads them down another path, I've contributed something to the world."

I think the post captures, in unequal parts, the reasons why I review.

Certainly reputation building is a factor, even though I'm not able to collect ranking points that will put me in the Amazon Top 500. I try to be careful about what I write, no matter what the topic, so that a reader might be persuaded by (or at least interested in) what I have to say on another topic. There's a certain "track record" effect that's part of establishing a reputation: we are more likely to heed someone who's written ten, or a hundred, movie reviews than someone who writes "I don't usually go to movies, but you should definately see {March of the Penguins, Revenge of the Sith, Napoleon Dynamite, ...}. It's awesome." When I recommend Woolly Mammoth as a good place to see contemporary theater, I have an archive of more than 20 reviews of their shows to back up my statement.

Identification with the artifact reviewed is something of a dirty little secret. What I choose to write about tells you a lot about me, so I'm measured in my output about popular culture, no matter how much I might enjoy it. I think that Bausch makes a fine point about "me too" reviews, when he writes

Most importantly, I write as self-expression and -discovery. I was inspired by a column by Frank Rich, who wrote something to the effect of "I write to find out what I think." Alas, mostly what I've discovered is that the more I read and write, the less I have to say about literature that is intelligent. Art and dance, a bit less so, but I understand my limitations: I can clearly write "I liked this pretty object, and here's what's pretty about it," but that's about it.

When I write about theater, I like to think that I bring a little more to the table. What comes as a surprise to me, after a few years of scribbling online, is how often I single out technical aspects of a production: sound design, lighting, that sort of thing. I think my faculties have been sharpened by the time I've spent myself wearing black clothes, sitting in the dark. And it's rare that professional reviewers will talk about tech. So I guess I shouldn't have been surprised when, a few months ago, a professional designer sent me an e-mail thank you for my amateur compliments about his show downtown.

One more thought: I try to write about material that not everybody else has written about. Not for me the obscurity of being reviewer #1282. So I skip some of the more popular books, and I don't write about movies I see unless they're in the cinemas. And that's sort of silly, because a lot of people don't watch movies in the cinema. So maybe I'll start reviewing things I've only seen on DVD. Even if my plain-Jane TV setup doesn't provide planet-exploding surround sound.

posted: 5:36:04 PM