The Shed at Dulwich: How One Journalist Used Information Cascades Turn his Shed Into the Top Rated Restaurant in London
Before becoming a journalist, Oobah Butler worked many odd jobs. The job that he found the most fascinating was writing fake restaurant reviews: small restaurants paid him $13 to write a positive review of his experience at their establishment, despite never having eaten there. Butler would occasionally check back up on those restaurants just to see that his fake reviews had helped propel them into success. Upon further reflection, Butler imagined a world in which he could use fake reviews to create hype around a restaurant that does not exist. Using the shed he was living in and the help of friends willing to write reviews, Butler’s home became the #1 ranked restaurant in London according to Tripadvisor.
Butler started by purchasing a burner phone to serve as the restaurant’s main point of contact. He took staged images of the “food”, listed only the road that the shed was on instead of the full address, and called the establishment an “appointment-only” restaurant to avoid being detected by anti-scam technologies. He submitted all of his forms to TripAdvisor, and they eventually approved the request. The Shed at Dulwich was officially listed on the site as the lowest-ranked restaurant in London.
Over the course of six months, Butler had his friends submit consistently positive reviews of the restaurant. To offset suspicion, his friends occasionally ranked the restaurant with 4 instead of 5 stars. As the phone rang incessantly with people trying to make a reservation, Butler simply told them that they were fully booked. This exclusivity only made the restaurant a more desirable destination. TripAdvisor eventually called Butler to let him know that his restaurant was now the #1 spot in London and had accrued over 89,000 views in one day. Butler opened the restaurant for one night only and served all of his guests frozen dinners under the guise of being at an upscale restaurant.
This feat is the perfect example of “following the crowd” in information cascades. When connected by a network, people often become influenced by the decisions of other people. The consistently positive, fake reviews made people in this network (TripAdvisor) feed off of one another. They “followed the crowd”, but the crowd did not exist. This case is unique because real people made decisions based on fake information. The patrons attempting to get in touch with The Shed at Dulwich made inferences on what they believed were earlier people’s actions. This is also an example of when an information cascade has an suboptimal outcome. Most people who were searching for a restaurant to eat at in London have a favorable opinion of The Shed at Dulwich simply because of the fake reviews. This exposes deeper cracks in TripAdvisor’s system because a real restaurant that was truly deserving of the coveted #1 spot could have potentially lost out on business because of this stunt. TripAdvisor’s anti-scam technology’s failure combined with people’s desire to “follow the crowd” let The Shed at Dulwich thrive–and paved the way for further deception on the platform to occur.