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# When Perfect Scores Stop Meaning Anything
- URL: https://adjacent.media/signals/when-perfect-scores-stop-meaning-anything/
- Published: 2026-10-23T10:15:54.000Z
- Updated: 2026-10-23T10:15:54.000Z
- Description: Aggregated ratings have become so divorced from individual taste that they’ve lost their signaling power—a 99 on Metacritic tells you what critics collectively think, not whether you’ll like the film. Consumers are reverting to older discovery methods: word-of-mouth, genre instinct, actor names.
- Author: Jonathan Greene
- Tags: #signal, theme-consumer, attention economy, trust and discovery, platform dynamics

Source: [Bring Back Sincerity II by Arye Dworken](https://open.substack.com/pub/aryedworken/p/you-cant-see-everything)

Aggregated ratings have become so divorced from individual taste that they've lost their signaling power—a 99 on Metacritic tells you what critics collectively think, not whether you'll like the film. Consumers are reverting to older discovery methods: word-of-mouth, genre instinct, actor names. Algorithmic consensus feels impersonal and untrustworthy. Studios can no longer use Rotten Tomatoes as a proxy for demand. Critics' gatekeeping role has eroded. Taste has fragmented into separate tribes, and what finds an audience has become more volatile.