If History Had Yelp Reviews

H.D. reviews famous moments in history as though they were restaurants or hotels.

I was sitting on the porch the other evening, watching a fella down the road try to parallel park a boat trailer for the better part of twenty minutes, when it struck me that we have become a nation of reviewers. We don’t just eat a burger anymore. We eat a burger, then we tell the internet about the burger, usually in a tone suggesting the burger personally wronged our family.

Now, I don’t say this to complain, exactly, though complaining can be fun. I say it because it got me wondering what history’s Yelp reviews might have looked like if the folks living through it had access to a star rating and a comment box.

What if…

Take the Pilgrims. They landed at Plymouth Rock in the dead of winter, half of them sick, none of them prepared, and I guarantee you somebody in that group would have given the whole expedition one star. “Advertised as land of opportunity. Arrived to find rock, cold, and no accommodations nearby. Would not sail again.” You know there was at least one Pilgrim who wanted his money back and had absolutely nowhere to send the complaint.

The Wright Brothers would have gotten mixed reviews. Half the crowd at Kitty Hawk probably wrote “Brief, but fascinating, questionable landing, will return with grandchildren.” The other half likely wrote “Waste of an afternoon. Bicycle men claim they can fly. They cannot. Sand got in my shoes.” Progress never impresses everyone at the same time.

Here’s the thing that sneaks up on you, though. Every person complaining in these imaginary reviews was right in the middle of history, and didn’t know it. Nobody wakes up and says “well, today I shall be historic”. They just live their ordinary day, and it’s only later that somebody builds a museum around it.

Which makes me take it a little easier on the boat trailer fella down the road, and a little easier on myself, too, for that matter. We’re all in here complaining about the weather and the traffic and the price of eggs, while living right smack in the middle of somebody’s future textbook.

And not one of us knows which paragraph we’re in.

So we might as well leave a fair review while we’re at it.

Four stars. Good company. Bring a coat. ~H.D.

More historic reviews:

• ⭐☆☆☆☆ — The Titanic
  Beautiful ship. Excellent band.
  Ice situation could have been handled better.
  ⭐⭐☆☆☆ — The Boston Tea Party
  Arrived expecting refreshments.
  Nobody served tea. They threw all of it in the harbor.
  Very misleading name.
  ⭐☆☆☆☆ — Pompeii
  Lovely little town. Great views.
  Volcano entirely too close to the property.
  Management should really disclose this.
  ⭐⭐⭐☆☆ — The Oregon Trail
  Scenery was nice.
  Trip took forever and Gary died of dysentery.
  Three stars because the oxen were pleasant.
  ⭐☆☆☆☆ — The Alamo
  No basement.
  I was specifically told there was a basement.
  ⭐⭐☆☆☆ — The California Gold Rush
  Drove all this way because everybody said there was gold.
  Guy selling shovels seems to be doing extremely well.
  ⭐⭐⭐⭐☆ — Ancient Rome
  Architecture: spectacular.
  Roads: excellent.
  Government: chaotic.
  Entertainment got a little aggressive.
  ⭐⭐☆☆☆ — The French Revolution
  Long lines.
  Staff seemed hostile toward management.
  ⭐⭐⭐⭐☆ — The Wild West
  Plenty of parking.
  No Wi-Fi.
  Everybody openly carrying.
  Bartender slid my drink all the way down the bar without spilling it.
  Would visit again.

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H.D. Ingles is a humorist, author, and the man behind RUNutsNetwork.com — Official Merch for the Officially Nuts.

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