The World According to Google Maps Reviewers
A recent influx of funny reviews makes for stinging social commentary
A few days ago, I was watching a video on the deep sea and was particularly intrigued by Challenger Deep, the deepest known point of Earth’s oceans. Wanting to learn more, I did a quick Google search. Given that there have only been a handful of manned expeditions to Challenger Deep, I was a bit surprised to find 921 reviews of the location on Google Maps. I scrolled through them, finding that people generally enjoyed the view, wildlife sightings, and accommodations, and disliked the darkness, lack of cell phone service, and being crushed to death.
Finding this mildly entertaining, I began to explore Google Maps’ other geographical locations to read about users’ experiences visiting them. People had made all kinds of discoveries in the Bermuda Triangle (14,638 reviews with an average of 3.9 stars), from finding Malaysia Airlines Flight 370 to their dads to Cthulu.
In the Arctic Ocean, one reviewer encountered Frankenstein’s monster while another made friends with a polar named Ralph. People had similarly exciting experiences all around the globe, from the Amazon Rainforest to the Dead Sea.
But it wasn’t people’s crazy adventures that interested me the most. It was their complaints.
One reviewer complained about not being able to find the food court in the Pacific Ocean.
Another reviewer didn’t like the lack of non-green plants in the Amazon Rainforest and suggested moving it closer to the airport. (Interestingly, despite these complaints, they still gave the Rainforest five stars).
Another reviewer did not appreciate the color of the Indian Ocean.
And as I read more and more and more reviews, I began to realize that they weren’t just silly things people had posted to kill time at work. They were subtle yet sharp critiques of us, as humans, and the reckless ways we treat the world we live in.
These reviews had an odd genius about them. They parodied our inability to look up from our phones, to take in the beauty around us, to protect the planet we owe everything to. One reviewer, for example, describes their long walk up Mount Everest, which they then decide is overrated.
Obviously, this review is meant to exaggerate and be funny. But it’s really not that far from the truth. We are living in an era of underappreciation for our Earth. We clear forests to build shopping malls, we deplete natural resources to power our screens, we turn color reefs, once-bustling epicenters of life, color, and diversity, into bleached dead zones, without a second thought.
Another reviewer parodied American exceptionalism, politely requesting that the Indian Ocean be moved closer to the United States.
As Americans, we often forget that we aren’t the center of the world. And, as humans, we often forget that our world isn’t the center of the universe. In reality, we are just a small, insignificant part of our surroundings. Yet we expect that things be digestible for us, that people have the same opinions as us, that the Earth provide endless natural resources to us. We claim the world’s beauty and knowledge are too far away, too out of our reach, so we content ourselves with trivial things in the here and now, requesting that things be “moved closer” so they can fit in our narrow worldviews.
But not all of the reviews are negative. Some are positive. For example, one reviewer had quite an amazing stay at Rikers Island in New York, a prison complex notorious for its culture of violence and abuse.
Another reviewer raved about the third arm he acquired at the Chernobyl Nuclear Power Plant.
These reviews use dark humor to point out the blissful ignorance that we often live in. Our lack of awareness of the suffering and struggles of others.
For some reason, satirical Google Maps reviews have recently become a lot more common. Some may lament the loss of this software as a reliable source of information about the pros of cons of different places. Personally, I don’t seem to mind that sarcastic, complaining, “no wifi” reviews are mixed together with real ones. It’s when we can’t tell the difference between the two that we should really start worrying.
