Word of mouth

The trouble with letting people write their own opinions on things online is that they can abuse the system for the purposes of comedy. This can lead to some odd occurences, perhaps none odder than the story that a T-shirt on Amazon has risen 2,300% through the Amazon rankings in the last few days.

This happened after users started to read endless positive, 5-star, tongue in cheek reviews of the T-shirt, in a collective joke that has had unforseen consequences. This is not the first time this has happened on Amazon - a photo of Paul Ross has equally positive reviews, although we don't think the reviews have increased sales. People still have some sense.