Schrute Farms: Fake Destination Still Garnering Fake TripAdvisor Reviews
Travel Blog • Michael Yessis • 03.30.10 | 12:19 PM ET
Faux Schrute Farms debuted on TripAdvisor in 2007, right around the time that Dwight Schrute, the ninja-loving paper salesman on the U.S. version of The Office, mentioned it on an episode of the series. Like many, we had a little fun with it at the time, then forgot about it.
Turns out the fake page still exists and it has more reviews than “many major Manhattan hotels.” From the New York Times:
Many reviewers add their own funny flourishes, enhancing the show’s mythology: Mandy Pyszka from Milwaukee, who stumbled upon the TripAdvisor site while searching Google for Dwight Schrute quotes, raved about the beet pudding.
Carla Harrington of Fredricksburg, Va., was surprised to find 82 percent of reviews recommended Schrute Farms. “I thought about what it would feel like not to know them as TV characters but to really go to this B & B,” she said in an interview. Her one-star slam called Dwight “an overbearing survivalist who appears to have escaped from the local mental asylum.”
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Michael Yessis is the cofounder and coeditor-in-chief of World Hum.
Global Granny 03.30.10 | 2:12 PM ET
Ever an admirer of such droll creative spoofs, sadly it does spotlight just how miserably unreliable so many of the online travel reviews have become. Sure, still worth wading through TripAdvisor, LP’s ThornTree forums, etc. to glean the lowdown on places to stay, tour operators, etc. in [insert your destination du jour here]. But trust that weeding out the abundant touts (often with multiple bogus accounts) who cleverly pose as travelers praising their own pet revenue stream gets very tiresome indeed. In short: naive traveler beware!