UGH: The Food Network is Making a Show Starring the Yelp Community

At the Scripps Upfront this week, the Food Network announced that in a partnership with Yelp, they will be airing a TV show this fall called 12 Hungry Yelpers. Restaurant owners will be confronted with their worst Yelp reviews and will make improvements based on the reviewers’ opinions. This was funny when it was a short Eater video in the style of Jimmy Kimmel‘s “Celebrities Read Mean Tweets” segments:

But now, it will be a full-blown show on the Food Network. Sometimes, these reviews are entertaining to read; other times they’re actually informative. But this is a terrible idea. We all know that it’s not going to be the helpful and informative reviewers who are picked for this project.

The Internet cesspool that is the angry and entitled Yelp community (the people who will be selected) do not need further validation that their reviews are actually making a difference. I once read a Yelp review where a woman though that the employees of a restaurant were trying to murder her by putting ingredients she didn’t like into her dinner. Her insane ramblings do not need to be given the platform of a network television show.

This show is the equivalent of Cage Fight: Trump Article Comments Section, the show we just made up that we also do not want to see.

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