Written by Omar Rivera
Vice News – I Got a Tattoo from One of Yelp’s Worst-Rated Tattoo Parlors
Vice News is one of the many properties under the Vice Media umbrella. The Vice News platform regularly releases video content exclusively for their YouTube channel and implement a reflexive approach to journalism. For their One Star Reviews series, reporter Taji Ameen visits business and services listed on Yelp.com with a low one-star review rating average to see if they really are as bad as people have reviewed it or if the businesses and services are just misunderstood (the unanswered question).
In this reflexive narrative, Ameen willingly lends himself as a protagonist to the story. Ameen is in search of getting his first tattoo and begins researching online for one-star reviewed tattoo parlors. Here, we see a composition method, or tool commonly used in online video which is implementing the use of computer screen capturing (or screen recording). What this does is allows the viewer to not only see what the on-camera character is looking at on their computer screen, but to also drive the narrative along as the character is searching for a possible route to take the story. Ameen scrolls through his options and comes across Fat Kat Tattoo and the artist mentioned on multiple reviews named Nate.
Next, there’s a sequence in this video that gives the illusion of a montage. As Ameen is asking Nate questions, the audio is layered over as the shots are faded in and out on top of each other to give the illusion of time passing and making Ameen seem more annoying throughout Nate’s creative process of drafting the tattoo. Question after question, shot after shot the tattoo is finally drafted and Ameen sits down on the chair ready to interview Nate and get his one-star tattoo.
The journalistic approach to the one-starred reviewed tattoo parlor shop begins to shift at the moment Ameen is being tattooed. He goes from a reflexive approach and combines interview. “I noticed some kind of, like, negative reviews on the internet in regards to working with you.” Nate then open up to the reporter and talks about struggling to be professional in his line of work, struggling to balance his personal life and his business. I believe what Ameen did to lead into the interview built the trust between himself and the “supporting character” of his narrative.
The story ends with Ameen writing a positive five-star review of Nate and Fat Kat Tattoo Parlor with a voiceover. This final voiceover wraps up the narrative nicely, teaching the viewer that we must not always judge a book by it’s cover it’s Yelp review.