It seems like nowadays we live in a world where everything needs to be judged. Everything needs a definitive number on where they stand. There have always been ordered lists of top stuff but it seems like in the last decade our lives have been overrun with giving everything a rating. It used to just be ratings for TV and radio but now the power is in our hands. We must be important. Did it start with “Hot or Not” where we actually found ourselves sitting at our computers for what seemed like hours rating random people on whether they were acceptable to sleep with or not? Was there something before? For years now I’ve been rating music in my iTunes library. Oh, how I put so much effort into making sure I don’t hurt these songs’ feelings. Better get it right… everything’s at stake. My radio playlist will thank me later. And I constantly find myself changing my ratings to make sure I have the playlist perfectly tweaked to hear exactly what I want when I just don’t know what it is that I want. Less importantly, in the last couple years, Flixter has us rating movies the same way, except with Flixster there isn’t even any reward when we rate stuff. It’s just so my friends will know how I feel about something. Last week I signed up for Netflix. It’s not intertwined with Flixster so I’m finding myself re-rating the same movies I have already rated before except now there’s a reward. Netflix will tell me what I want to see. So how do you guys rate your stuff? Everything’s a 5 star system so I’m always trying to find the best way to go. Netflix says the following:
- star – Hated it
- stars – Didn’t Like It
- stars – Liked It
- stars – Really Liked It
- stars – Loved It
But where’s the “It’s Just OK” rating? I’ve been watching movies all weekend and I didn’t necessarily “Like” all of them but I don’t want to go as far as saying that I “Didn’t Like” them. Half stars might help but too many options might just confuse things more. So I’m now using 3 stars for “It’s Just OK” and 4 stars for “Liked It”. I need to stop putting so much pressure on those 5 star items. 5 stars can no longer mean god status. It just means I “Really, Really Like” something. I sure hope Netflix will forgive me.
I’m currently watching: NFL Football: AFC Championship: New York Jets at Indianapolis Colts