Yelp is a Secretly Full Featured, Completely Unhinged Boomer Social Media Platform

Blowing the lid off of the boomer's best kept digital secret

It’s newly summer, and Ted Kaczynski just died. I’m laying down on the couch scrolling through pictures of food from an Italian joint over on Broadway called Sampino’s. I didn’t know it at the time, but I will have eaten there 3 times in the following weeks, consuming irresponsible amounts of pasta and wine.

After a few minutes of scrolling it begins to dawn on to me that an shockingly high number of the pictures are featuring the same little boy over the years, wearing different clothes, eating different foods, and varying in age. Having the brain of an actual child myself, I think that I’m on the cusp of cracking a cold case or whatever.

The unfortunate reality of the situation would come to be far more sinister than I could have imagined.

And so, as any dutiful detective does, I elect to go down the rabbit hole, and dig.

Launching, closing, and re-launching the investigation

In an unsatisfying turn of events, the guy posting the pictures wasn’t a criminal at all - just the kid’s grandpa. Cold case closed.

He was, however, was a pretty big deal on Yelp, which I concluded from his profile’s mighty Coveted Black Elite 11 Years of Service Badge, 50k Photos, 10k Compliments, 3k Tips, 2k Friends, 155 Dukedoms, 30 Yelp Elite Squad Events, and several Baronies.

And so, a new investigation is born from the ashes. An investigation into the seedy underbelly of Yelp where the boomers move in silence; verbally assaulting retail workers, trying to get laid, and building up Elite members to mythological figures.

We’re actually going down the rabbit hole this time, I promise.

Yelp features you might not know about

I’ve broken them down into three categories, in ascending order of absurdity:

1. Baseline features:

• Send DMs
• Friends/followers
• Share photos & videos to your profile

Not a big surprise here - you’d expect any modern social media platform to support this sort of functionality. I wasn’t aware that Yelp had some of them, myself.

2. Sensible domain-specific features:

• Leave Reviews
• Add Tips

Tips are meant to be helpful, bite sized collections of crowd-sourced information about a business like unannounced holiday hours, or wheelchair accessibility conditions.

With Yelp’s power users being primarily comprised of luddite boomers, it might not come as a shock that Tips are routinely misinterpreted as being directly interchangeable with Reviews. This makes for some truly entertaining, confused, and mean-spirited reviews being neatly wrapped and presented as ‘helpful information’.

3. Unhinged Yelp-specific features with no right to exist:

• Appoint yourself a nickname with seemingly no character limit to be displayed in an aggressively large font at the top of your profile, e.g:
  • Rich “Grandpa of the unofficial Yelp Kid” L
  • ED “I say Yelp it! Yelp it good! Yelp it real good!” L
  • Sue “Always me!!” G
• Earn ranked badges reflecting your in-app achievements
• Apply to become a member of the Yelp Elite Squad
• Attend exclusive events with other members of the Yelp Elite Squad
• Become regionally ranked as Yelp Royalty
• Post public, oddly flirty, predetermined compliments to other user’s profiles, e.g:
  • Cute Pic
  • Hot Stuff
  • Like Your Profile
  • You’re Cool
  • You’re Funny

Yelp Elite Squad? Baronies? Reset password?

The first step in truly understanding these complex ideas is embracing the fact that they’ve shed their digital skins, transcended the in-app boundary, and broken the 4th wall.

Yelp social constructs you definitely didn’t know about

They’ve formed social hierarchies with rigidly defined ingroups and outgroups, e.g:

• Yelp Elite Squad

  • Highly active users considered ‘role models’ by a Yelp-appointed admin team who will either approve or deny your application to join. Elite-worthiness is based on review popularity, photo quality, detailed personal profile, and having a positive account standing. If the application is approved, the user is awarded with an ‘Elite badge’ on their Yelp profile. After being Elite for 5 years, members receive a Gold Elite Badge; after 10 years, they receive the coveted Black Elite Badge. You’re also bound to an Elite Code of Conduct, which isn’t to be taken lightly, as:

    “Those who run afoul of these rules or otherwise besmirch the Elite Squad’s reputation may have their membership revoked”

• Yelp Royalty

  • Users with the most check-ins at a venue are awarded with the title of Duke/Duchess. Those with the most titles in their neighborhood become the Baron/Baroness. Those with the most in the city become the King/Queen.

Users have also developed their own in-app language and colloquialisms, e.g:

• SYOY (a common valediction acronym used at the end of public compliments meaning See You On Yelp)
• Yelpers (collective noun for Yelp users)
• Yelping (verb for using Yelp)
• Referring to each other as Elites/Kings/Barons/Dukes

Users with more prestigious levels of Yelp Royalty and/or Elite badge tiers are treated like celebrities. Other users are constantly showering them with praise relating to their reviews, badges, photos, level of royalty. They’ll even just say good morning to them each day in hopes of getting a response.

Lessons learned

You can’t just jump to accusing people on the internet of being kidnappers & murderers. I mean you can, but it’s pretty gutting when the theory immediately falls apart. It turns out that we’re all just desperate for internet points regardless of age - some folks chase likes on Instagram, others fight to become the Duke of their local Applebee’s.

SYOY!