Explained: What is Review Bombing, Why Is Ms. Marvel At The Receiving End Of This Practice

The Marvel Cinematic Universe¡¯s latest release Ms. Marvel has already hit the internet, with its first episode streaming exclusively on the Disney+ platform. While the show already garnered enough attention even before its release, the miniseries has been strongly ¡®review bombed¡¯ on the Amazon owned review site IMDb, within hours of its broadcast, with a rating of 6.6 out of 10.

Opinions and reviews have been democratized to the levels that prominent websites allow users to post and influence others opinion through their posts and ratings on movies, shows, games and books. While aggregators like MetaCritic and IMDb top the list of user-based review sites, there are many others for public perusal.

Ms. Marvel is the first MCU feature to represent a Muslim and a South Asian character as the protagonist Kamala Khan- a 16-year-old Pakistani American from Jersey City. Creator Bisha K. Ali has meticulously depicted Muslim and South Asian culture with the mentions of Bismillah, Salwar kameez (traditional shirt and trousers worn by South Asian women), Urdu language and Chai, probably beyond the comprehension of the regular Marvel fans, who have taken to the internet to troll and criticise the plot of the show.

What is Review Bombing?

Review Bombing or vote brigading is a coordinated strategy of trolling or reviewing a show or product where a group of users syndicate to publicise negative reviews of the concerned product or work with a deliberate malicious intent of reducing its popularity and success.

Reviews are extremely popular in today¡¯s generation, which relies on first-hand user-based accounts for testimonies and experiences with these shows and products and is thus influenced to watch or subscribe to the concerned work.

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Review bombing on the other hand is a compromised model of this democratised system where multiple reviews motivated by a common antipathy, ideological hardlines or a systematic boycott and preconceptions are infiltrated by these reviewers that further narrativize a falsified and fabricated discourse to push their political or cultural agendas. Most of the times these are resultant of the trolling and promulgation of fake information.

How do Review Bombers work?

The review bombers often coordinate through a well-planned strategy and use their discourse and network to further the agenda. Some of the strategies that review bombers incorporate are paid reviews, i.e. a payment or monetary compensation to write unfavourable reviews.

Often even verified users are paid to indulge in such practices. Brigading is the most effective technique in this regard, it is a strategy where a particular community takes on another community by flooding reviews with a certain opinion. This is a more exploitative form as most users do not actually read the reviews rather base their opinions on the ratings and scores the show has received.

A social media campaign or a targeted attack on twitter or other social media platforms can effectively brigade a show. Accumulating reviews is a practice where the concerned show just highlights the reviews selectively thus promoting only the sections which it wants to enforce.

Why is Ms. Marvel being Review Bombed?

According to American commentator, Joe Vargas the show was rated with one star within three minutes of its release suggesting that the users did not even watch the complete episode. Almost 33% users have rated the show with a one star, while a polarising 44% have given it a full score.

Reddit and twitter users have expressed reviews with racist, Islamophobic and sexist comments calling it ¡®cringe,¡¯ childish¡¯ and ¡®wasteful¡¯. The show is essentially a huge step in terms of representation in a franchise which has been dominated by White, North American Males as the protagonist here is an immigrant South Asian Muslim girl.

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In 2019, another and the first female led movie of the franchise Captain Marvel received a similar flak when it got almost 50,000 negative reviews even before the release.

Ms. Marvel however has been appreciated by film critics, cinema experts and many fans around the world with critics rating it at a handsome 95%, while the audience putting it up 88% on review aggregator Rotten Tomatoes.

The rest five of the episodes of the show are yet to be broadcasted and while the reviews on IMDb puts it at a low, fans are more excited after the first episode has added to the hype.

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