the gamified public mechanism and playful comedy scene of "xiaomei jury" and "cyber judge"
2024-09-22
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an interesting fact is: as a contemporary cyber creature who orders takeout almost every day, i first learned about this unique public review mechanism from the meituan app itself, but from the video game self-media and social platforms such as xiaohongshu. this alone is ridiculous: this mechanism called "cyber judge" to resolve disputes between customers and merchants in the takeout industry is so deeply related to consumer rights and the business environment of merchants. as a "serious" "institutional innovation", how did it connect with funny memes on social platforms and even the video game player community, triggering a wave of dissemination and widespread participation? why is it that an attempt that has been tried on other online platforms and has not aroused much public enthusiasm based on historical experience (such as the "public review" on sina weibo that received a lukewarm response) has led to countless participants in meituan, in the field of the food delivery industry, calling themselves "qingtang da lao ye" and happily participating in the review every day, enjoying the unique arcade-style experience within a limited "physical strength" value, and even carefully managing their own two-dimensional judge "avatars" to call on friends to show the social attributes of the internet, thus presenting an entertaining and even gamified face?
as long as you have a meituan account and have linked your id card, you are welcome to enter the weird and playful world of the "xiaomei jury".
little beauty jury
“gamification” of public review
when it comes to public platforms launching "public review" in which ordinary users can participate, the most direct criticism is often directed at the inequality between the public platforms in terms of enjoying rights and fulfilling obligations. e-commerce platforms like meituan and taobao, which basically monopolize most of the industry resources in the country, have the obligation to resolve conflicts and disputes between registered users and merchants and maintain a harmonious and clear business environment. it is the responsibility of e-commerce platforms to actively handle complaints raised by users and merchants and provide reasonable solutions. in fact, sina weibo, which was the first to use the "public review" mechanism, has been controversial for the reason of "letting users do your own work and shirking responsibility." however, from a legal perspective, the "xiaomei review panel" discussed in this article can be said to be influenced by sina weibo, but it also avoids the rights and responsibilities disputes encountered by weibo: because the "xiaomei review panel" is not responsible for the transaction disputes themselves: the economic disputes between customers and merchants are still judged by the platform, and the decision-making power of returns, refunds, compensation and other economic interests still belongs to the platform and its regulatory authorities. the decision results of the "xiaomei review panel" are not directly related to the rights and interests of customers and merchants. compared with sina weibo, the text content of weibo is actually the "goods" or output held by users. therefore, whether the text content of weibo is displayed to "public review" is strictly speaking an infringement of the inherent rights of users.
so, if it is not directly related to the rights and interests of customers and merchants, it sounds like the "xiaomei review" is "useless", so what is the value of its existence? in fact, the name of each ruling of the "xiaomei review" reveals the core of its mechanism: "suitable for display" and "unsuitable for display" - yes, the "xiaomei review" appeals to the public for judgment not on specific disputes, which have long been resolved by the platform (regardless of whether the resolution is reasonable), but on whether the comments left by users on the merchant interface are "suitable for display". if the merchant feels that the user's evaluation of it is malicious and worthless, which will lower its own score and mislead other consumers, thus affecting its business, it can report this comment to the "xiaomei review" for appeal, and all meituan users will make the ruling. if the result is "suitable for display", this comment will be displayed on the merchant interface and seen and referenced by any consumer, and if it is "unsuitable for display", the merchant can be exempted from a series of negative effects such as the reduction in score that comes with this comment. therefore, on the one hand, user reviews are indeed an important way to assist consumers in making choices and merchants in their own promotion on e-commerce platforms. therefore, although the "xiaomei jury" is not concerned with direct economic rights and interests, it can still have a profound impact on the future rights and interests of users and merchants. on the other hand, the "xiaomei jury" is able to avoid legal disputes over the rights and responsibilities of e-commerce platforms. the "future rights and interests" it affects are ultimately unknown and unrealized, and will not directly cause negative impacts on anyone. this also provides an ethical guarantee for the entertainment and even "gamification" of this review mechanism.
so, we verified our meituan accounts with real names (in fact, as long as we order takeout, our accounts have been authenticated with real names), and then took three "test questions" which were basically nonsense but were a necessary procedure. then we joined the "xiaomei jury" and could become the "master of clear soup": meituan immediately assigned us an image of a cute "judge" wearing a turquoise ancient "official uniform" (although currently only male and female are available for this image, it is conceivable that in the future, this image will most likely be dressed up and managed by the players themselves like in qq show, fully realizing its essence of "game avatar"), and then entered the first level of the "game": real evaluation.
as the name implies, real review refers to the real cases of merchants complaining about user reviews, which is the formal link for you as the "clear soup master" to cast a vote to represent your own opinion - wait, how come the first level of the game involves real people and things that may affect specific users and stores? in order to be a good "judge" responsibly, shouldn't we practice with some cases that do not involve reality? this is the big paradox that the "xiaomei jury" subverted the cognition of users at the beginning: only if you participate in it in person will you know that the ruling results of this so-called "public review mechanism" may be very important to users and merchants, but the designers of the meituan app have keenly grasped another fact, that is, the specific results are not so important to you as a judge - whether you judged right or wrong, do you still have to be held responsible? a major premise of public review is: the "collective" in an abstract sense is responsible, not any individual who joins the collective.
okay, then put aside your nervousness and worries, and the "clear soup master" will open the court to try the case: the materials for each case are divided into the following items: 1. the evaluation content that the user is required to judge, including the rating, evaluation text, and attached pictures and videos; 2. the merchant's response to the evaluation at the time. this material is often of little significance, because in order to ease the user's emotions, especially to guide the user to delete the negative review, the merchant's immediate response at the time is often polite and clichéd. however, if there is a "true" response from the merchant, it often has a decisive impact on the final result; 3. the merchant's appeal materials, the merchant can explain to the jury the reason for his dissatisfaction with the comment, with text and pictures attached. interestingly, the merchant is not allowed to upload videos. i don't know if it is a technical reason that will be solved in the future, or it is intentional; 4. the order details that the "judges" are most concerned about. this information is provided by the platform. on the basis of anonymous review with the merchant name hidden, it provides a series of objective content such as the order content, user notes, order time, delivery time, and completion time. this is often the most solid basis for the "clear soup master" to make the final decision.
well, now that all four materials are in your hands, what kind of judgment will you make? after you click "suitable for display" to support the user or "not suitable for display" to support the merchant, your task is over. the review time for an appeal is 24 hours. after 24 hours, the minority obeys the majority, and the final voting result is used to determine whether this evaluation will appear on the merchant's evaluation interface. in fact, you will not be notified of this result. if your judgment is in the minority and is not adopted, it will only be displayed in your review record and will not have any other impact on you. your "adoption rate" is only visible to you. for unsatisfactory voting results, you can express your support or dissatisfaction in the comment area. the "judge" is tasked with five questions every day, and everything is free for you. in fact, if it stops here, then the "xiaomei jury" is nothing more than an embroidered pillow, a mechanism to "demonstrate fairness" as a facade. after briefly enjoying the pleasure of the "clear soup master" making the "judgment", users will lose interest and enthusiasm. after all, "exemption from liability" is a user's need on the one hand, but it also deprives users of their participation and involvement in the judgment itself.
however, if you regard "xiaomei jury" as an electronic game, then the "real review" session is just an "appetizer", a "novice area", and a "teaching level" - isn't it amazing that they dare to use real cases as "novice levels", which shows that your vote does not really have much weight and significance - the second level "jury challenge" is the real highlight of "xiaomei jury". here, all the cases that have been appealed before have been screened by meituan and transformed into a "question bank" that you need to challenge. you start with three points of physical strength ("heart") and start a level-breaking game with up to 15 questions per day. although it is based on the same four materials, your task is to guess rather than choose the final result of the review at that time according to your personal wishes and opinions. the review has a "correct answer". if the judgment is in line with the result at that time, you will proceed to the next question "without injury". if the judgment is wrong, you will lose a little "love". if you have used up the "love", you can't continue to pass the level unless you use the "jury coins" obtained by sharing, logging in, etc. to purchase "love" - the daily "jury challenge" provides fifteen challenge levels, and the real "gameplay" and design related to the user's own involvement appear here: based on the player's results, meituan provides a provincial and national ranking list "xiaomei fengshenbang" (this is still a homophonic pun) arranged according to the number of questions answered and the number of correct answers. at this time, the user's "right or wrong" is no longer useless like in the "real review", but intuitively shows the "win or lose" in the form of rankings and obtaining meituan coins, pulling every "clear soup master" into the nationwide "evaluation and selection" and rolling it up!
look, there are personal avatar images, there are levels to answer questions, there is a "physical value" that limits the number of times you can play like a mobile game, there is a real national performance ranking and "ladder" - so is it strange that "xiaomei jury" appears in the vision of the gaming media? in the jokes of the gaming media, "xiaomei jury" is already a "brand new 4d open world reasoning strategy game, no loading screen, no download, no money, click to play", which combines reasoning, survival, strategy and other exciting game mechanisms in one. what's more interesting is that these "question banks" are real takeaway disputes that happen in our daily lives. any artist knows that the best art is nothing more than imitating reality, and reality is the real art.
entertaining comedy scene
at this point, it seems that we should praise and marvel at the creativity of the designers of the meituan app in transforming the "public review" mechanism, which was originally intended to highlight the fairness of the platform and even had some motives to shirk its own responsibilities, into a "game" for the participation of all people. but i think that perhaps the person who first came up with the idea of using the cases that have already received review results as a "question bank" for users to challenge levels did not expect the current complex and complete game mechanism. this person probably just had a simple entertainment mentality and wanted to share some comment cases that are full of comedy effects and absurd colors, and even have a surreal and postmodern style with more people. later, the "xiaomei jury" also launched a daily "meituan daily" to collect "weird" cases. the screenshots of the reviews that have repeatedly made the public laugh on platforms such as weibo, xiaohongshu, and douyin are a long echo of this initial entertainment mentality.
the first thing that can be detonated is of course some "absurd comedies" that are beyond the scope of normal human understanding. under the reality of "human species diversity", there are always some people whose brain circuits and thinking are different from ordinary people, leaving many comments that make merchants feel psychologically traumatized and the public feel at a loss. the joke of "being a judge of takeout, tasting the world's cerebral palsy" sounds a little harsh, but if you really encounter it, you may have to empathize: for example, the reason for giving a bad review to the merchant after buying flowers is "girlfriend doesn't like it", asking the merchant to put 200 yuan in the takeout for him in the notes, the freeloaders who blatantly wrote "why do i have to pay for meals", and the merchant who ordered 100 limited gifts and asked the merchant to deliver according to the quantity, insisted on ordering things that are not on the menu, and complained about the production problems of specific products in the supermarket, etc. these comments seem to be born with the "holy body" of the internet meme. while instantly detonating the internet, we can't help but wonder whether there are cracks in the world's basic education and common values.
of course, there are also some "funny" negative reviews that come from cognitive differences or even knowledge reserve problems among customers or merchants. for example, they don't know where the straw of a coffee cup is, don't know the difference between cabbage and green vegetables, can't distinguish between chicken and duck, roosters and hens, don't know that soup noodles are often packaged with "soup on top", lack practical knowledge of the description of weight and volume, poor language and expression skills, incomprehensible notes, etc. at this time, the "xiaomei jury" even took on some entertaining "popular science" functions, which in a sense impacted the current state of social alienation where there are many circles and no communication with each other.
when entering the meituan app, users will see this interface
of course, compared to these absurd comments that seem to come from primitive sensibility rather than human rationality, many cases still have rules to follow, reflecting some structural contradictions in the takeaway industry, which is worth mentioning by the "judges": the more representative controversy lies in the taste of takeaway dishes, especially the issue of spiciness and sugar. generally speaking, if a customer asks for "slightly spicy" but finds it too spicy, it must be the merchant's problem. if they order "extra spicy" and can't stand the spiciness, it is the customer's "food practice", but what if the customer dislikes the "medium spicy" too spicy? what if the customer asks for "half sugar" but still finds it too sweet? this kind of problem that combines specific personal tastes and personal experiences is often unsolvable. four simple materials cannot be specific to each person's motivation and personal taste. therefore, as the review activities progress, the "judges" gradually developed a series of "hidden rules of review" to deal with these cases where there are no standard answers to the main disputes. it is precisely these "hidden rules" formed by users in the process of tacit understanding and subtle influence that show a lot of operating logic and collective mentality hidden under the external order of society.
for example, "merchants pretending to be stupid is suitable for display." if the merchant does not directly respond to the user's doubts, but avoids the question, or deliberately misinterprets the user's meaning (such as deliberately interpreting the user's sarcastic remarks as good reviews), then the "judges" will directly stand on the side of the user; for example, "chat records are basically fake," because few people will add a private wechat account to communicate with the merchant just for ordering takeout. malicious bad reviews and smears from peers are still rare after all, and the time of many chat records does not match, and the signs of forgery are too obvious; for example, foreign fast food takeouts must be given enough ketchup and other sauces according to the customer's requirements. the general merchant's default rule of "only fries are given ketchup" is in customers don't agree here; for example, "inconsistency between pictures and texts" is the responsibility of the merchant, who has the obligation to make the pictures of the products basically consistent with their own cooked products. especially in disputes involving flower shops and cake shops, the public often takes the position of requiring "complete consistency between pictures and texts", and often promotes some "ugly cakes" and "ugly flowers" as internet memes... basically, we can find that as long as the customers are normal and rational people, and not in the absurd and abstract situations mentioned above, the "xiaomei jury" as a whole still stands on the customer's side. even when the user may have some obvious faults, if the merchant shows a sign of not complying with the "unspoken rules", then the "judge"'s vote will most likely go to the customer.
at this point, for merchants, the communication with customers has fallen into a difficult-to-measure balance trap: can this customer's "weird" behavior trigger the anger or empathy of the "judges"? in some cases, although the customer's behavior is inappropriate, the "judges" think that the merchant's reaction is too intense and "uncivilized", while there are also many cases where the merchant's intense reaction or even "insults" can get the passionate support of the "judges" because the customer's behavior is too absurd. how to grasp the "degree" in this? weighing the pros and cons, we can see that most merchants realize that no matter how much "grievance" they have encountered, they must put on a mentally stable and weak face to "reason", and must not be emotional and put on a resistance posture. this seems to be in line with the basic consensus of the service industry. however, as some similar cases that have occurred before also remind us, merchants and their employees are actually people around us. do their emotional values have to be ignored? for example, as mentioned earlier, uploading videos is not allowed in the merchant complaint materials of the "xiaomei review panel" (but it is allowed when users make comments). in fact, many "judges" have encountered cases where it is possible to clarify the facts if there is a surveillance video, but because of this mechanism, merchants can only provide video screenshots in this situation. first, many screenshots do not match the time and can be considered forged. second, it is indeed impossible to clarify the specific situation with just a few unclear screenshots under the upload restriction. from my personal experience, i almost never see cases where merchants turn the tables with video surveillance screenshots. this is actually contrary to common sense.
screenshot of the tv series "black mirror season 3"
the most explicit "unspoken rule" in the "xiaomei jury" that most touches on the structural problems of the food delivery industry is the general protection of food delivery riders in the mentality of customers, "riders who blame others are all suitable for display". some merchants often think that it is the rider's problem when the dishes become cold, spoiled, or spilled, but in the practice of the "xiaomei jury", only when the platform data shows that the rider took more than 40 minutes to deliver the food, will there be a certain possibility of considering the rider's responsibility. in other cases, the rider often has a natural immunity. there are also jokes such as "the deliveryman brings his own stove" and "the deliveryman can do small magic" to protect the rider - but in fact, this harmonious atmosphere of protecting the rider is very different from the controversy over food delivery riders in actual online public opinion. of course, this may be because the "xiaomei jury" is still targeting the contradictions between customers and merchants. if the customer confirms in advance that it is the rider's responsibility, he will directly appeal to the platform and will not become a case of the "xiaomei jury", but in any case, it still shows the public's sympathy for food delivery riders in a general sense.
in fact, in conjunction with the deliveryman-themed movie "reverse life" directed by xu zheng, which has caused controversy on the internet today, we may have to point out that under the gamification and entertainment of the serious social mechanism of "public review", the "xiaomei jury" is actually more of a "placebo" for the public psychology than the actual positive effect on consumer rights and a harmonious business environment. the controversy encountered by "reverse life", such as "a group of multi-millionaires appearing and representing deliverymen" and "the smile of the deliverymen on the poster whitewashes the peace", is actually not a big hostility to "cross-class narrative" (after all, it is better for the film and television industry to make one more movie about the grassroots people in society than not to make one), but fundamentally because it does not fit the public's perception and violates the public's emotional value needs. the public is not unaware that the plight of deliverymen and their conflicts with merchants and customers are "mutual harm at the bottom" under social structural problems, and they also know that these problems will not be solved in the foreseeable future, but the problem is that the public does not really want to spread this despair, and does not want this sense of powerlessness to really affect the emotions of individuals and the collective.
in fact, even if we don’t talk about the deliverymen, isn’t the “xiaomei jury” also a kind of “illusion of justice” constructed by the e-commerce platform in an entertaining, gamified, and popular way? even if, as mentioned above, this behavior of shifting the responsibility that should be borne to the public avoids legal and ethical disputes, but in the final analysis, this kind of symbolic performance of “gamifying” serious social reality problems is still essentially a collective psychological anesthesia method of social mythology. is this too harsh and too unemotional? after all, i have been addicted to the pleasure of being a “clear soup master” for a long time and can’t extricate myself? yes, this is the most fascinating part of this realistic comedy. in other words, this is the eternal meaning hidden in the immortal title that balzac originally wrote:
"human comedy".
kong degang
(this article is from the paper. for more original information, please download the "the paper" app)
