Meanwhile, “ haul videos” have flourished for more than a decade on the platform.
The appeal lay in observing the mysteriously pleasurable (and wasteful) wonder of seeing someone crumble as they struggle to slather one more layer of mascara on their quivering, encrusted eyelashes. Frequent YouTube viewers will recall summer 2016, when it seemed like any vlogger looking for guaranteed views was putting 100 layers of a beauty product, and sometimes variants like glue, on their bare and willing bodies. The worst reviewed genre is just the latest iteration of the frivolous consumerism that’s long been a staple of the platform’s trends. The end of each video then comes with a breakdown of the highs and lows of the visit as well as the ultimate judgment: Is this business really as bad as Yelp reviews say it is? They then read some sample negative reviews to prime their viewers, and themselves, for what to expect, a ritual that nearly always involves the YouTuber exclaiming, “I’m so nervous!” or “I’m so freaked out right now!” Next comes the actual visit to the business, which the video creator attempts to film, either covertly or outright. The willing customer scrolls through Yelp reviews until they find the lowest rated of one particular kind of business. Each “worst reviewed” video follows essentially the same format. In recent weeks, a legion of YouTubers big and small have been subjecting themselves to discomfort in a novel way: by visiting their local “worst” businesses as determined by online reviews, particularly the behemoth app of the sector, Yelp. It’s why a video called “Pencil Stuck in My Eye Prank” has nearly 13 million views, why some of the platform’s most popular vloggers have taken baths in liquids like hot sauce, and why a video of a woman stomping grapes and then falling and injuring herself was an early viral hit on the video-sharing platform. There are no illusions as to what YouTube users are looking for when they click on titles that hold the promise of catastrophe.
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