WWWeb-footed 

Hey, “The leading independent guide to what’s on in Singapore” recently launched a mobile app. Having never heard of City Nomads I thought I’d check out its website, and chose a restaurant review at random, just to see what it’s all about.

Wading past the usual lifestyle writer’s clichés – Sabai Fine Thai on the Bay is, of course, ‘nestled’ in its location. Nestled being the only way a lifestyle writer can describe a physical location. ‘Nestled in verdant greenery’ is a personal favourite and overused phrase, as though greenery is any other colour.

There was a mention of ‘pleasing verdant foliage’ in another randomly-selected review on the site, so I’m saying they’ve got all the boxes checked. Then again, another food blogger went the whole hog with ‘nestled among lush greenery’ for his review of the same place, and yet another went with ‘soaked in quiet greenery’. I’m assuming he took a wetsuit.

But back to the Thai restaurant. Apparently the chicken wings were ‘joyful’, which would seem odd given they’d been hacked off a chicken and subsequently stuffed and fried.

But the one that really hit a nerve was this: The ‘duck red curry’ came in a ‘light red curry sauce containing lychees, an unusual but brilliant addition.’

Lychees in gaeng phed ped yaang are an ‘unusual’ addition? Oh come on: 90 percent of the red duck curries I’ve ordered have had lychees in them.

Some lychees, yesterday

I’m an old fart I know, but this sort of uninformed opinion masquerading as knowledge really pisses me off.

If you’re going to make a statement of fact, maybe you should try to ensure it is actually factual. Ever heard of Google? It is a place to start, though may well lead you to other similarly uninformed opinions on the Web.

Herd ignorance; just what the world needs.

Now I know I’m picking on City Nomads unfairly, it’s not as though they’re the only amateurs in the field.

It is possible to write with some humility and informatively when you’re new to something, but in most cases  you want reviewers who have some experience in the field about which they write.

This is problematic in the lifestyle media for reasons made clear on City Nomad’s website in a job advertisement. You too could join the City Nomads team as editor, the gatekeeper for all the opinion and facts (along with the spelling and grammar) that warrant publishing, and earn a grand sum of S$3-4k a month for your trouble. That’s US$2.4-3.2k.

Stop and think about that for a moment.

Unless you’re living at home with mummy and daddy (a distinct possibility in the world’s most expensive city) and they’re picking up all your bills, that’s not going to leave a lot of spare cash for dining out at anything other than hawker centres. So where, other than hosted media tastings, are you going to get the experience you should have in order to do the job properly?

I’ve long maintained that to write about lifestyle it helps to actually have a lifestyle, but frankly most publishers don’t see it that way, choosing instead to exploit juniors who perceive the business as glamourous and are willing to accept inequitable wages as a result.

If you’ve ever wondered why reviews in the so-called lifestyle media tend to be as gushing, and as adjective- and superlative-laden as the marketing materials from which they are so often cut and pasted, or why they’re so often ill-informed and undiscerning, then wonder no more.

Do we deserve better? I’m not so sure we do, given our penchant for consuming our media for free on the Web. Maybe the old model where experts were paid a proper living wage to write reviews and we paid for the privilege of reading them was better?

Thoughts?

Anyway, now I’m done venting my spleen, last night’s dinner was based of a recipe  in an old Donna Hay magazine. Thai herbs, duck, home-made chilli jam, and fresh lychees. They were an unusual, but brilliant addition.