Yelp.com has managed to place itself at nearly the top of any venue or restaurant listing you happen to be searching for, especially here in Tech Bubble SF. The problem is that many of the most active “Yelpers” are affluent, snobby and whiney; in other words: yuppies.

But, like most of my sweeping generalizations, it’s not quite accurate to dismiss them all as yuppies, or their reviews de facto irrelevant for any venue/restaurant not catering to their exorbitant and self-important tastes. Therefore, channeling my over six years of anthropological research and my love for making wild accusations ala the creators of The Hipster Handbook, I bring you:

turkeydinner’s guide to Yelpers

The Aspiring Writer
Perhaps the most common Yelper, the Aspiring Writer either wants to somehow be discovered and made into a real food critic or just likes to read their own words. I often skip these reviews because I really don’t care to read about the lurid details of the rain coming down that night and how the restaurant’s light was the only beacon of hope on that dark and stormy night. If I wanted that drivel, I’d read romance novels. And besides, after trudging through their amateur writing, the review bit is often short and rarely helpful.

This guy, is perhaps the biggest offender. I mean, he’s got poems and lyrics for chrissakes!

The Old Timer
You know the type. They’ve been living in the city, neighborhood, area code, 1960s, etc., long before you ever got here. You are naïve and don’t know a thing about the “good ol’ days” when that restaurant/venue used to be a speakeasy/discotech/coffee lounge and how it was so much better then. So instead of writing a review of the current place, I’m going to tell you about how it used to be and how much better it was then than now. And how it depresses me so — these changes — that this will be my last review, dear Yelpers, as I’ve decided to kill myself.

Boo fucking hoo.

The Whiner
“My food was too spicy [at an Indian restaurant]!” “My water didn’t have enough ice in it,” “My drink was too expensive*” “We had to go pay at the register.” And so on and so forth.

* just kidding, Yelpers would rather complain about how cheap something is than expensive. Remember: spending money = elite.

The Idealist
This Yelper gets in their car on a Friday evening and sets off towards San Francisco wondering why on Earth would there be such rush hour traffic on such a nice evening. They arrive at their restaurant of choice (found on Yelp of course) and begin to count the minutes it takes to have them seated at the popular new place at 8pm on a Friday night. Perplexed at the hour wait, they make mental notes to slam the place for it but they’ll tough it out in order to make a proper review (”my public demands my reviews!”). After an hour of being annoyed, it just seems to get worse and worse. The restaurant is busy and therefore loud (- one star), we had to wait for our food (- one more), etc. These poor saps have such high hopes, only to have them dashed, time and time again. My heart bleeds for them.

The I don’t eat that kind of food guy
This, by far, is the yelper I hate the most. Truth be told, they’re often slammed on the site itself and their useless reviews tend to collect at the bottom with The Shit-talker (see below), and other filth. These Yelpers insist on going to restaurants that serve food they particularly dislike. They will mention this fact right off in their review, and yet, they stayed, ordered, ate (what they could!) and come back to leave a scathing review. “I don’t eat raw fish and so I didn’t care much for this sushi restaurant.” “I don’t like spicy food, and boy howdy, Indian food is spicy. One star!” etc. Basically, they should be shot.

The Casual Racist
Another very common type of Yelper. They come from a world where each has their own separate place. Implicit believers in Plessy v. Ferguson, The Casual Racist is often confused by the fact that when dining at a Japanese food place, they find not one Japanese working there. And an Italian place with Mexican cooks? Get right out of town! Often in league with The Old Timer, these Yelpers remember the days when you went to Chinatown to get Chinese food and the Mission District to get Spanish (sic) food and McDonalds was just alright until a bunch of Filipinos started working there. Alright, alright, that last one was a bit much, but you get the idea.

The Chemist
Another favorite of mine is The Chemist. These Yelpers swear that they can tell the difference between Alaskan salmon and anything else calling itself salmon. Or how they’re getting ripped off because they swear there’s hardly any alcohol in their cocktail, probably only 1/2 ounce! (they like to get specific, they’re scientists after all!). Of course, they make these claims when the salmon is smothered in some cream sauce and their drink is a strawberry daiquiri made “extra sweet.” Their extremely discriminating sense of taste and smell is the basis of their entire review. Most Yelpers worship their power and swear by their reviews.

The Shit-talker
Perhaps the yelper I have the most in common with (ahem!), The Shit-talker is a lowly bottom-feeder of the Yelp community. Like any community site, there are cliques (see The Elite below), gossip and rivalries. The Shit-talker will work tirelessly to bring these out in their reviews. Often, they will bash someone else’s review telling them how wrong they are because of this or that and what not. I think generally, this could be helpful, like perhaps pointing out The Chemist (see above) is, in fact, a raging alcoholic and there can never be enough booze in his or her drink or that one popular reviewer is The I don’t eat that type of food guy (again, see above). There is, however, a subset of the shit-talker who is just down right mean or has a crap review like “This place sucks!” which I’m sure worked out great for them in grade school, but doesn’t quite cut it on Yelp, or pretty much anywhere. Fortunately, many of their reviews are removed or pushed to the bottom.

The Yelp Elite
Call it genius community marketing or useless popularity contest, The Yelp Elite certainly take this shit for serious. Admittedly, having worked on community sites, the elite concept is brilliant. You only need “apply” by sending a message off. I’m not sure what minimum requirements you need to have, but I imagine if you’re interested, you probably already have some quality reviews up and perhaps lots of Yelp “friends.” It doesn’t cost anything to become elite, but you do have to renew each year. Rumor has it, you get some schwag every now and then and maybe some secret invites to parties? I’m not sure. But, like I said, having worked on the internets’ communities, the most important thing is you get a little badge next to your name. On the internets, badges are fucking gold. If you’re a Shit-talker, even a funny one, and you diss an Elite? You’re fucking 86′d man! Or something. Either way, Yelp allows the Elite to run around proclaiming their Elite status, writing reviews, creating content, promoting Yelp all for free and they are paid nothing but schwag from dot-coms already filing for bankruptcy. Bloody brilliant.

I hope you enjoyed my little Yelp primer. Please add your own Yelp archetype in the comments.