When I was a kid, I was obsessed with movies and movie reviewers. I watched Siskel & Ebert on PBS and read the work of critic Jeff Simon, who is still writing (at an advanced age I was unable to determine before writing this) for the Buffalo News.

“Movie reviewer” was one of the many exciting-yet-amorphous jobs I thought I might be able to do when I grew up. I couldn’t imagine doing any non-exciting-yet-non-amorphous jobs.

I never became the sort of movie reviewer who could boost or sink a film with a thumb gesture. Since that gesture is trademarked, I would have had to use my big toe. It’s probably for the best that it didn’t work out.

But I did indeed review many movies, books, plays, concerts and collections of recorded music over the course of the last 30 years. I don’t review anything anymore, not even in my spare time. The reason I don’t has to do with how “reviewing things” has changed over the years. For one thing, no one wants to pay anyone to review things anymore. For another, we are all expected to review everything for free all the time.

Whenever we make a purchase or use a service, we are urged to go online and write a review. During a typical day, we might be urged to review our bikini waxer, our parking garage attendant, the lifeguard at our neighborhood pool, our parole officer and the guy who slices ham at Golden Corral.

We are urged to review nose-hair trimmers, hemorrhoid creams, foot deodorants and wart removers. These are hypothetical examples that have nothing whatsoever to do with my personal purchase history.

When asked for my opinion on goods I have bought and services I have used, my mind tends to go as blank as a white Arctic parka in a blizzard in the Nunavut territory of Canada. But other people seem to be all too ready and all too eager to write reviews about everything.

You can’t look at a video of an adorable and unquestionably healthy baby these days without finding a bad parenting review in the comments.

You can’t look at a video of someone suddenly overcome with delirious joy without reading a review in the comments section in which the reviewer chides the poster for allowing herself to become so shamefully consumed with delirious joy.

You can’t look at a video of a paramedic saving a person’s life with CPR without reading a review along the lines of, “While it is great that you somehow saved that man’s life, your technique is terrible.”

I know this is going to come as a shock to many of you, but there are a lot of opinions on social media. If you haven’t noticed this before on your own, you may want to take note of it the next time you log in to one of our many fine social media networks.

On any and all of these networks, you will find opinions and opinions of the opinions and opinions of the opinions of the opinions. In olden times, people had no choice but to tell you their opinions face-to-face. Or in a letter. Or a telegram. Or by semaphore.

At the risk of coming across as some sort of conspiracy theorist, I will hesitantly suggest that our social networks do seem to be prioritizing the most vitriolic and fact-deprived opinions. If true, I am sure it’s just accidental. I am sure they would be shocked to find out this is the case. I should probably send them a letter. Or a telegram. Or a message by semaphore. First, I would have to learn semaphore.

Do you feel pressured, as I do, to have and share opinions about things you never would have had opinions about before the invention of the internet? I often find myself thinking something like, “My Facebook friends must be wondering why I haven’t weighed in on the possible dissolution of the Affleck/Lopez marriage.”

Roman emperor Marcus Aurelius said that it was dangerous for someone to express too many strong opinions, that it created chaos. Of course, he was referring specifically to political leaders. I am not the leader of anything except the campaign to restore semaphore education in our primary schools.

Because there are, relatively, few leaders on Facebook, we can be assured that the overabundance of strong opinions has created no chaos whatsoever.

To be perfectly honest, I have been trying, almost reflexively, to have fewer opinions. When I walk out of a movie, I turn to my wife and quote the Neutrals from the Neutral Planet in “Futurama” – ”I have no strong feelings one way or another.”

Professional critics, with their extensive training and deep expertise and commitment to journalistic fairness, seem impossibly quaint in today’s world.

I am sure we won’t miss them when they are gone.

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