I do want to just chime and in and say many libraries still employ this kind of person -- the Reader's Advisory staff -- for bespoke recommendations. I was that person at my last library job, and while I was there we started doing limited runs of personalized book boxes (three books + a snack and a craft or a goodie), based on a short survey that patrons filled out. As the staff, we tried REALLY hard to give these patrons books we thought they would love; we wanted them to love what we picked, yeah, but we also wanted them to keep coming back to the library.
Which is essentially what you've said in this piece. In terms of bespoke recommendations though, I think there's an element of feeling special. Of feeling seen. Of feeling like someone has you in mind when choosing something.
So fascinating! I'm long in the business of internet recommendations, so I feel like I understand pretty well the impulse to recommend both from a "creator's" perspective and a consumer perspective. What I find to be really interesting is how quickly the demand for recommendations balloons beyond what could reasonably be offered by a mere mortal. Once you're a person who offers recommendations online, there's a certain expectation for *everything* you talk about/exist in proximity to, to be a recommendation. Recently someone mentioned to me that they were disappointed in a book recommendation I'd made. Thing was, I hadn't really recommended the book at all, I'd just written a kind of lukewarm quip about it on Instagram stories when I finished it. Over the weekend I went to see Barbie (which I also felt lukewarm about) and I wore a pair of my mom's 15-year-old heels to mark the occasion. When I snapped a picture of me in the heels and shared it in my stories, a dozen people wanted to know what the shoes were and where they could buy them. Of course, I couldn't point to a store and I walked out of the movie theater barefoot cause they hurt my feet so much! I don't recommend those shoes in the same way I don't recommend the ugly saucepan/crappy tri-pod/scratched-up sunglasses I use just cause they happen to be the ones I have! Would that could heartily recommend everything I come across!
Separately, I think there's a really interesting suspension of disbelief on the part of readers (both online and in traditional print media) regarding recommendations. Yes, this person (or this magazine) thinks this is the "cutest little date dress for less than $30," but also the Nordstrom summer sale is on, and they just bumped their affiliate rate for your site, and there are many many dollars at stake. Innnnyway, one of many reasons I've been feeling so much better about diving into a reader-supported model instead!
There’s an entire sub thread to be written here about gift lists, right? Because besides books and movies, I am always looking for gifts for the specific type of people in my life. They don’t need anything and can buy themselves anything they want. So how do I surprise and delight them? By obsessively reading gift lists.
There are people who excel at this kind of thing. Malcolm Gladwell called them "mavens" & "connectors"- people whose joy is found in telling you where they got that dress or who has the best whatever. I have a mental map in my head of places I can recommend to people and it's saddening when my knowledge is outdated once I leave a place (NYC, Seattle...). I love being helpful. I love sharing my knowledge & experience. I think the people who excel at this kind of thing are fearless first adopters and pioneers- we don't need someone's validation to try something. We're not afraid to make a mistake. We have tastes that are close to the mainstream but not exactly in it. We're aware of trends but not melded to them. We're independent thinkers but not rebels. We're deep listeners and careful observers. We take delight in introducing people to things that will improve their lives. And we're unbothered when people don't take our advice or disagree.
I'm a dedicated Geezer group member, and I think what makes recommendations work for me are:
-If it's clothing, does this person have a similar body type/dress size to me? I know Caroline won't recommend something that tops out at a size 8.
-Is this person living a life I find relatable? A random 20-something influencer or someone who's got four perfect blond children all dressed in expensive beige are not relatable. Someone who has a personality that comes across as authentic (even messy) is what works for me. I love Carla Rockmore despite being someone who will never have a two-story closet or wear Balenciaga dresses, but I love how she talks about fashion and the fun she has with it.
-One of my favorite Geezer requests recently was from me, and it was just me asking for drugstore cosmetic requests for days when you need a reward for going grocery shopping. "Best drugstore whatever" lists from Allure don't tell me if a real person loves that, but some random person in the Gee Thanks FB group saying she'll pass up Sephora-level highlighters for a Wet n Wild one makes me interested.
In terms of the trust component with recommendations, I think a big part for me is someone who is also willing to say things that DON'T work for them and why. Not necessarily bashing something, but clearly willing to take a position and have an opinion as opposed to only steering readers towards things to consume (also a difference from a women's magazine). This also carries over to which influencers I'll trust (very few--and only those that I see using the recommending the same brands/products for years, not just a single campaign and then the product seems to completely disappear).
Someone asking for or taking your recommendation is just such a supreme compliment and can give tiny tiny bit of anxiety bc if they don't like it the way you, what does that say about your taste or connection with someone?
But, boy when someone you love, loves a thing you love and then you can share it and talk about it, truly that is the best feeling.
I have been thinking about the way white women (I am one) sometimes offer these recommendations to people who didn't ask for them, or give directions or "tips" when no one asked them. I do think it is a pretty toxic trait and have stopped it, even tho I can hear the chorus rise up to say, but I am just being helpful. So yeah, my rule for myself is to give recommendations when asked or when I want to say, I loved this thing and it made me think of you or want to talk with you about it, maybe you will want to see it?
Barbie movie was a great example where I was dying for someone I liked to see it so we could talk about it. And disagreement would have been ok, but mostly fun to do the "and that matchbox 20 song???" Wit someone who also vibes on it the same way.
I have found so much good and amazing performance performance art/dance by just following a performer I adored and seeing who they admire and like. Which is a form of recommendation.
Anyway I love them, I used to adore chow hound bc it was the same thing for food and now Eater seems to do a pretty decent job but without all the weird small personal anecdotes I loved. "Next to the best bao in Chinatown is a super cool park where you can sit and eat them and see the location of the first public baths in NYC".
I think I’m in the minority on this, and also one of the readers old enough to have spend the majority of my life with print magazines, but there’s a magic to the magazine recommendation vs. an online thread with everyone able to weigh in. In a magazine, an item was just there and by virtue of being there, it was magical and the gold standard. It wasn’t clickable and I would very rarely ever make the effort to find and buy it, but it was aspirational and pretty and helped me imagine a world in which I lived a life in which that could be mine. But with almost everything online, once I can click it and see reviews, the shine has dulled. Because for every person who OMG LOVES it, there’s someone who UGH too. An example would be yesterday’s thread where the sunrise alarm clock got a whole lot of hate, but I’ve sworn by mine for years and just recommended it with so much enthusiasm to a friend. It’s why I can barely stand to read reviews or recommendations anymore when I’m shopping because they make me wary of anything I buy! I miss the days of having our glossy pages separate from our actual shopping experiences......
Aug 9, 2023·edited Aug 9, 2023Liked by Anne Helen Petersen
I think good recommendations, like good advice, come from a thoughtful place that takes into account the requirements or guidelines given by the individual seeking advice or a recommendation. I love Ask.MetaFilter.com. The only challenge is those who respond to questions often respond to the question they want to answer rather than the question that was actually posed. When I was younger, I was fixated on figuring out how to correctly perform taste publicly. I grew up poor, and will never forget the two times my college friend (and later housemate) cut me down to size. Once, as I was clearing dishes, she told me to stop scraping leftovers into a single dish to stack them because that was low-rent. Another time, I made a dress for an event at my first job out of college. After I was done sewing, she looked at it and told me it looked like it was made out of quilt fabric. And maybe it was! TL;DR, I used to curate my bathroom reading to impress the guests I rarely had. I felt wrong at all times, courtesy of many things including the women's magazine industry. Your newsletter, several others, and also MetaFilter are much better sources of recommendations. I am largely over attempting to demonstrate good taste publicly (apart from the unfortunate brown-and-peach jumpsuit I bought earlier in the year). Thanks for the topic!
Wow this is really interesting, I'm really enjoying thinking about this. I think there are two buckets of recommendation types for me that play very different roles in my life:
1. Topics on which I have a good and refined sense of my own taste.
For me, this includes books & cooking - I read and cook a lot, know what I like and what I don't, have my own theories and ideas and styles. I love recs on these topics because it feels like late-night dorm room chatting with smart people - maybe i'll get a new lens on something I already think, maybe I'll find something new and different that gets me out of my comfort zone, maybe I can show off my own taste a bit. It feels fun and conversational and a bit flattering, as discussed above.
2. Topics on which I know nothing/am intimidated.
There are other topics I just need someone to for the love of god tell me what to do. I have put buying/doing a thing forever, I'm paralyzed, I have (or feel like i have) no taste or judgement that I can trust, I just need someone to fix this for me. For things like clothes or interior design, I have such a lack of style/taste. I've really tried, but I just have a blindness to it where I can't figure out how to make things look good. I really need to piggyback on someone's else more refined eye, and it's just about finding someone I trust to tell me what to do. This type of rec isn't about fun, it's about desperation. (this includes many of my this-purchase-will fix everything purchases, obvi).
One component of recommendation culture is definitely US-specific in the sense that it rests on the ease of online ordering and free or cheap shipping. I live in Canada and most American-recommended (or European -rec'ed) stuff will require a trip across the border or a ridiculous amount of shipping/import duties (see: €100 shorts from Sezane recommended on twitter for which I paid $45 import tax). I'm not mad at this, but it definitely shapes how I engage with recommendations (very little) since their relevance/availability is limited. When I do, it's more out of curiosity about how other people think about things and criteria for appreciation.
One thing these comments make me consider is how we approach recommendations when money is or is not involved (our own or others). For example, with clothes/beauty products/homeware, etc etc etc, I'm both being asked to spend money and, in many cases, the recommender is getting a kickback. With books, articles, music, I don't necessarily have to spend any additional money, and the recommender presumably isn't getting any sort of financial benefit. How do you evaluate each one? What sort of trust do you need to have build to consume one vs. the other. What about other kinds of recommendations--restaurants, museums, trips, etc.? How do these categories shift our expectations for what a recommended product or experience should deliver?
I use recs on the Internet a lot because it is so hard to search for anything purely off Google. I doubt so many search hits because I know what goes into listings, how many scams there are, etc. I need someone's full experience with something to make a decision.
This was so interesting to read--I have so many thoughts! I just started a newsletter last week after hemming and hawing about it for over a year, and something I originally wanted to include were sporadic recommendations, because I LOVE to engage with them on both ends (giving and receiving). But I've pulled back from the idea for now for exactly the reasons you've laid out here: I don't (really) have an audience yet, so there's no established trust or bond to build from. It'd feel weird to even give recommendations when I don't have an audience to "know"--I'd be making tons of assumptions about who they are/will be, what's important to them, what they like, etc. Part of why I love recommendations in newsletters or on social media is because I've sought out these people to follow and feel aligned with them in some way, so their recommendations feel more intimate. It feels like a weird sort of celebrity effect--I don't *actually* know all the writers I'm following, but it FEELS like I do, so I take their recommendations more seriously than random reviews or even Wirecutter recommendations, for example.
PS. Anne, during the gift concierge thread during the holidays, you recommended Paul Newman's memoir for my stepmom who loves reading and old Hollywood--she said it was one of her favorite gifts last year! Big big thanks. :)
There’s something about the way we shop now (mostly online, millions of options, have to mail back returns) that almost requires the recommendation discussions. If I’m going to buy sheets online, I need to know how they feel, what people like about them, how long they last before I purchase.
Another point that may be specific to those of us of a certain age, but I sometimes I need the discussion I’d have with a friend at the mall in say 1997, even if it’s manufactured with strangers on the internet that happen to listen to the same podcast.
as a skincare and makeup enthusiast with specific intolerances and needs, i *love* youtube/long form reviews, first-impressions, and wear tests. although i don't love the impossible to escape capitalistic cycle of "buy this and your life will change forever" mentality, i deeply appreciate that there are people out there dedicated to trying out products so that i can have more information before i make a purchase - it's work, and i'm happy to compensate them with ad dollars and affiliate links. i also like to follow those whom i feel have a measured approach and real curiosity in the topic itself versus those who feel like a content machine.
i often reflect on this relationship with creators and their recommendations. it can be parasocial, and/or it can be a valued resource. for marginalized folks who don't often see themselves represented in a space (e.g. makeup before the age of fenty and its groundbreaking 40 foundation shades), it's moving, connective, and important to see creators on the search/recommending things that addresses a relevant need in the audience's lives. it's representation - it makes me think of that scene in Devil Wears Prada where Tucci is talking about the magazine being a beacon of hope - for those not living in cities, it's powerful to see your life, needs, and wants reflected back to you in a tangible way. at the risk of sounding contrite, a good recommendation for anything, from makeup to health services to books/movies, make you feel less alone.
I do want to just chime and in and say many libraries still employ this kind of person -- the Reader's Advisory staff -- for bespoke recommendations. I was that person at my last library job, and while I was there we started doing limited runs of personalized book boxes (three books + a snack and a craft or a goodie), based on a short survey that patrons filled out. As the staff, we tried REALLY hard to give these patrons books we thought they would love; we wanted them to love what we picked, yeah, but we also wanted them to keep coming back to the library.
Which is essentially what you've said in this piece. In terms of bespoke recommendations though, I think there's an element of feeling special. Of feeling seen. Of feeling like someone has you in mind when choosing something.
So fascinating! I'm long in the business of internet recommendations, so I feel like I understand pretty well the impulse to recommend both from a "creator's" perspective and a consumer perspective. What I find to be really interesting is how quickly the demand for recommendations balloons beyond what could reasonably be offered by a mere mortal. Once you're a person who offers recommendations online, there's a certain expectation for *everything* you talk about/exist in proximity to, to be a recommendation. Recently someone mentioned to me that they were disappointed in a book recommendation I'd made. Thing was, I hadn't really recommended the book at all, I'd just written a kind of lukewarm quip about it on Instagram stories when I finished it. Over the weekend I went to see Barbie (which I also felt lukewarm about) and I wore a pair of my mom's 15-year-old heels to mark the occasion. When I snapped a picture of me in the heels and shared it in my stories, a dozen people wanted to know what the shoes were and where they could buy them. Of course, I couldn't point to a store and I walked out of the movie theater barefoot cause they hurt my feet so much! I don't recommend those shoes in the same way I don't recommend the ugly saucepan/crappy tri-pod/scratched-up sunglasses I use just cause they happen to be the ones I have! Would that could heartily recommend everything I come across!
Separately, I think there's a really interesting suspension of disbelief on the part of readers (both online and in traditional print media) regarding recommendations. Yes, this person (or this magazine) thinks this is the "cutest little date dress for less than $30," but also the Nordstrom summer sale is on, and they just bumped their affiliate rate for your site, and there are many many dollars at stake. Innnnyway, one of many reasons I've been feeling so much better about diving into a reader-supported model instead!
There’s an entire sub thread to be written here about gift lists, right? Because besides books and movies, I am always looking for gifts for the specific type of people in my life. They don’t need anything and can buy themselves anything they want. So how do I surprise and delight them? By obsessively reading gift lists.
There are people who excel at this kind of thing. Malcolm Gladwell called them "mavens" & "connectors"- people whose joy is found in telling you where they got that dress or who has the best whatever. I have a mental map in my head of places I can recommend to people and it's saddening when my knowledge is outdated once I leave a place (NYC, Seattle...). I love being helpful. I love sharing my knowledge & experience. I think the people who excel at this kind of thing are fearless first adopters and pioneers- we don't need someone's validation to try something. We're not afraid to make a mistake. We have tastes that are close to the mainstream but not exactly in it. We're aware of trends but not melded to them. We're independent thinkers but not rebels. We're deep listeners and careful observers. We take delight in introducing people to things that will improve their lives. And we're unbothered when people don't take our advice or disagree.
I'm a dedicated Geezer group member, and I think what makes recommendations work for me are:
-If it's clothing, does this person have a similar body type/dress size to me? I know Caroline won't recommend something that tops out at a size 8.
-Is this person living a life I find relatable? A random 20-something influencer or someone who's got four perfect blond children all dressed in expensive beige are not relatable. Someone who has a personality that comes across as authentic (even messy) is what works for me. I love Carla Rockmore despite being someone who will never have a two-story closet or wear Balenciaga dresses, but I love how she talks about fashion and the fun she has with it.
-One of my favorite Geezer requests recently was from me, and it was just me asking for drugstore cosmetic requests for days when you need a reward for going grocery shopping. "Best drugstore whatever" lists from Allure don't tell me if a real person loves that, but some random person in the Gee Thanks FB group saying she'll pass up Sephora-level highlighters for a Wet n Wild one makes me interested.
In terms of the trust component with recommendations, I think a big part for me is someone who is also willing to say things that DON'T work for them and why. Not necessarily bashing something, but clearly willing to take a position and have an opinion as opposed to only steering readers towards things to consume (also a difference from a women's magazine). This also carries over to which influencers I'll trust (very few--and only those that I see using the recommending the same brands/products for years, not just a single campaign and then the product seems to completely disappear).
Someone asking for or taking your recommendation is just such a supreme compliment and can give tiny tiny bit of anxiety bc if they don't like it the way you, what does that say about your taste or connection with someone?
But, boy when someone you love, loves a thing you love and then you can share it and talk about it, truly that is the best feeling.
I have been thinking about the way white women (I am one) sometimes offer these recommendations to people who didn't ask for them, or give directions or "tips" when no one asked them. I do think it is a pretty toxic trait and have stopped it, even tho I can hear the chorus rise up to say, but I am just being helpful. So yeah, my rule for myself is to give recommendations when asked or when I want to say, I loved this thing and it made me think of you or want to talk with you about it, maybe you will want to see it?
Barbie movie was a great example where I was dying for someone I liked to see it so we could talk about it. And disagreement would have been ok, but mostly fun to do the "and that matchbox 20 song???" Wit someone who also vibes on it the same way.
I have found so much good and amazing performance performance art/dance by just following a performer I adored and seeing who they admire and like. Which is a form of recommendation.
Anyway I love them, I used to adore chow hound bc it was the same thing for food and now Eater seems to do a pretty decent job but without all the weird small personal anecdotes I loved. "Next to the best bao in Chinatown is a super cool park where you can sit and eat them and see the location of the first public baths in NYC".
I think I’m in the minority on this, and also one of the readers old enough to have spend the majority of my life with print magazines, but there’s a magic to the magazine recommendation vs. an online thread with everyone able to weigh in. In a magazine, an item was just there and by virtue of being there, it was magical and the gold standard. It wasn’t clickable and I would very rarely ever make the effort to find and buy it, but it was aspirational and pretty and helped me imagine a world in which I lived a life in which that could be mine. But with almost everything online, once I can click it and see reviews, the shine has dulled. Because for every person who OMG LOVES it, there’s someone who UGH too. An example would be yesterday’s thread where the sunrise alarm clock got a whole lot of hate, but I’ve sworn by mine for years and just recommended it with so much enthusiasm to a friend. It’s why I can barely stand to read reviews or recommendations anymore when I’m shopping because they make me wary of anything I buy! I miss the days of having our glossy pages separate from our actual shopping experiences......
I think good recommendations, like good advice, come from a thoughtful place that takes into account the requirements or guidelines given by the individual seeking advice or a recommendation. I love Ask.MetaFilter.com. The only challenge is those who respond to questions often respond to the question they want to answer rather than the question that was actually posed. When I was younger, I was fixated on figuring out how to correctly perform taste publicly. I grew up poor, and will never forget the two times my college friend (and later housemate) cut me down to size. Once, as I was clearing dishes, she told me to stop scraping leftovers into a single dish to stack them because that was low-rent. Another time, I made a dress for an event at my first job out of college. After I was done sewing, she looked at it and told me it looked like it was made out of quilt fabric. And maybe it was! TL;DR, I used to curate my bathroom reading to impress the guests I rarely had. I felt wrong at all times, courtesy of many things including the women's magazine industry. Your newsletter, several others, and also MetaFilter are much better sources of recommendations. I am largely over attempting to demonstrate good taste publicly (apart from the unfortunate brown-and-peach jumpsuit I bought earlier in the year). Thanks for the topic!
Wow this is really interesting, I'm really enjoying thinking about this. I think there are two buckets of recommendation types for me that play very different roles in my life:
1. Topics on which I have a good and refined sense of my own taste.
For me, this includes books & cooking - I read and cook a lot, know what I like and what I don't, have my own theories and ideas and styles. I love recs on these topics because it feels like late-night dorm room chatting with smart people - maybe i'll get a new lens on something I already think, maybe I'll find something new and different that gets me out of my comfort zone, maybe I can show off my own taste a bit. It feels fun and conversational and a bit flattering, as discussed above.
2. Topics on which I know nothing/am intimidated.
There are other topics I just need someone to for the love of god tell me what to do. I have put buying/doing a thing forever, I'm paralyzed, I have (or feel like i have) no taste or judgement that I can trust, I just need someone to fix this for me. For things like clothes or interior design, I have such a lack of style/taste. I've really tried, but I just have a blindness to it where I can't figure out how to make things look good. I really need to piggyback on someone's else more refined eye, and it's just about finding someone I trust to tell me what to do. This type of rec isn't about fun, it's about desperation. (this includes many of my this-purchase-will fix everything purchases, obvi).
One component of recommendation culture is definitely US-specific in the sense that it rests on the ease of online ordering and free or cheap shipping. I live in Canada and most American-recommended (or European -rec'ed) stuff will require a trip across the border or a ridiculous amount of shipping/import duties (see: €100 shorts from Sezane recommended on twitter for which I paid $45 import tax). I'm not mad at this, but it definitely shapes how I engage with recommendations (very little) since their relevance/availability is limited. When I do, it's more out of curiosity about how other people think about things and criteria for appreciation.
One thing these comments make me consider is how we approach recommendations when money is or is not involved (our own or others). For example, with clothes/beauty products/homeware, etc etc etc, I'm both being asked to spend money and, in many cases, the recommender is getting a kickback. With books, articles, music, I don't necessarily have to spend any additional money, and the recommender presumably isn't getting any sort of financial benefit. How do you evaluate each one? What sort of trust do you need to have build to consume one vs. the other. What about other kinds of recommendations--restaurants, museums, trips, etc.? How do these categories shift our expectations for what a recommended product or experience should deliver?
I use recs on the Internet a lot because it is so hard to search for anything purely off Google. I doubt so many search hits because I know what goes into listings, how many scams there are, etc. I need someone's full experience with something to make a decision.
This was so interesting to read--I have so many thoughts! I just started a newsletter last week after hemming and hawing about it for over a year, and something I originally wanted to include were sporadic recommendations, because I LOVE to engage with them on both ends (giving and receiving). But I've pulled back from the idea for now for exactly the reasons you've laid out here: I don't (really) have an audience yet, so there's no established trust or bond to build from. It'd feel weird to even give recommendations when I don't have an audience to "know"--I'd be making tons of assumptions about who they are/will be, what's important to them, what they like, etc. Part of why I love recommendations in newsletters or on social media is because I've sought out these people to follow and feel aligned with them in some way, so their recommendations feel more intimate. It feels like a weird sort of celebrity effect--I don't *actually* know all the writers I'm following, but it FEELS like I do, so I take their recommendations more seriously than random reviews or even Wirecutter recommendations, for example.
PS. Anne, during the gift concierge thread during the holidays, you recommended Paul Newman's memoir for my stepmom who loves reading and old Hollywood--she said it was one of her favorite gifts last year! Big big thanks. :)
There’s something about the way we shop now (mostly online, millions of options, have to mail back returns) that almost requires the recommendation discussions. If I’m going to buy sheets online, I need to know how they feel, what people like about them, how long they last before I purchase.
Another point that may be specific to those of us of a certain age, but I sometimes I need the discussion I’d have with a friend at the mall in say 1997, even if it’s manufactured with strangers on the internet that happen to listen to the same podcast.
as a skincare and makeup enthusiast with specific intolerances and needs, i *love* youtube/long form reviews, first-impressions, and wear tests. although i don't love the impossible to escape capitalistic cycle of "buy this and your life will change forever" mentality, i deeply appreciate that there are people out there dedicated to trying out products so that i can have more information before i make a purchase - it's work, and i'm happy to compensate them with ad dollars and affiliate links. i also like to follow those whom i feel have a measured approach and real curiosity in the topic itself versus those who feel like a content machine.
i often reflect on this relationship with creators and their recommendations. it can be parasocial, and/or it can be a valued resource. for marginalized folks who don't often see themselves represented in a space (e.g. makeup before the age of fenty and its groundbreaking 40 foundation shades), it's moving, connective, and important to see creators on the search/recommending things that addresses a relevant need in the audience's lives. it's representation - it makes me think of that scene in Devil Wears Prada where Tucci is talking about the magazine being a beacon of hope - for those not living in cities, it's powerful to see your life, needs, and wants reflected back to you in a tangible way. at the risk of sounding contrite, a good recommendation for anything, from makeup to health services to books/movies, make you feel less alone.