About 10 years ago, my husband and I loaded our kids into the car and drove to what was billed as a destination family resort with an indoor water park. The ads promised a magical, kid-friendly escape worth the drive. We booked it without a second thought. We should have had at least one second thought.
When we arrived, the parking lot was empty. Not “offseason quiet” empty— more like “the last guests left under mysterious circumstances and nobody came after them” empty. The lobby carpet was torn up in patches. The hallways were dim and echoey. And the indoor water park, advertised with glistening slides and splashing families, consisted of exactly one broken slide standing in an otherwise empty pool. My kids’ faces broke my heart. The concierge was pleasant enough. She advised us to just wander the halls and pick whatever room looked good to us. So we chose the least creepy option, pushed the bureau in front of the door before bed, and left first thing in the morning.
That day, I wrote the only one-star review I have ever left in my life. It was two pages long and included photos. I went with equal parts scathing and cautionary. A few months later, I went back to see if the hotel had responded. Instead, I found that it had permanently closed. Part of me wonders whether my review was the final nail in the coffin.
But was leaving it actually the right thing to do? I’ve been thinking about it ever since, because the etiquette of negative reviews is genuinely murky, and the stakes can be higher than most of us realize.
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The case for leaving a one-star review
The most obvious argument for a negative review is that you were asked and the service was truly terrible. Every time you visit a business, Google, Yelp, Amazon and everyone else wants to know how it went. We’ve built an entire consumer infrastructure around the premise that honest feedback is valuable.
So staying silent when you have had a genuinely terrible experience seems, if anything, like failing your civic duty. There weren’t any reviews of the hotel when I booked our trip (which should have been my first red flag), and they would have been so useful. The data backs this up: 94% of consumers say a negative review has convinced them to avoid a business.
Reviews are how strangers protect one another. When a hotel advertises a water park and delivers one sad slide in a drained pool, that’s not a minor inconvenience—it’s actually a misrepresentation. Plus, honest negative reviews can benefit businesses. A consistent pattern of one-star complaints about cold food is information that the management can act on. Silence isn’t kindness; it’s useless.
The case against it
OK, but … a single one-star review can also do lasting, disproportionate damage to a small business. Especially if it’s exaggerated (as can happen when you write in the heat of the moment). A landmark Harvard Business School study found that a one-star drop on Yelp translates to a 5% to 9% revenue loss. And industry estimates suggest it takes roughly 40 positive customer experiences to claw back the reputational damage of just one negative review. For a small business operating on thin margins, that revenue loss could represent payroll, rent and the owner’s ability to keep the lights on.
Also, many of the issues stem from circumstances that no individual employee created. One terrible visit, driven by a broken system or an understaffed night, may not represent the whole story. Leaving a permanent, public indictment based on a single bad day can feel less like accountability and more like collateral damage.
When it stops being feedback
It’s also worth noting that online review culture has developed a genuinely ugly side that has nothing to do with honest consumer feedback and everything to do with online bullying.
In 2025, a James Beard–nominated San Francisco chef found his restaurant review-bombed into closure after a dispute with a TikToker went viral. Hundreds of thousands of people who had never set foot in his restaurant, never tasted his food, never interacted with a single member of his staff flooded his Google page with one-star reviews because an influencer told them to. His employees were laid off, he lost his livelihood and his restaurant closed. And that’s just one example of many.
This is not etiquette; this is bullying. And it is one of the worst things happening in online culture right now. A review is supposed to be your honest account of your own experience. The moment you leave a one-star review for a business you’ve never visited, you’re not holding anyone accountable. You are, however, weaponizing hate. A review platform is not a pitchfork, and treating it like one doesn’t make you an activist—it makes you incredibly rude.
The verdict
Here’s what I’ve settled on: A one-star review is appropriate when the problem was systemic, significant and likely to happen to the next person. Not because your server was having a hard shift. Not because your food arrived slightly cold during a Saturday-night rush. When there is genuine misrepresentation involved or consistent, recurring failures, you are not being rude. And I will say that given this rubric, I’ve never left another one-star review.
If you’re going to leave a one-star review, there are a few practical rules. Be specific, not mean. Describe what happened rather than what you think of the person who served you. Don’t write it in the heat of your emotions. And before you post anything, consider calling the business directly. A surprising number of problems get resolved this way, and a business willing to make it right deserves the opportunity. If they don’t respond, you will feel considerably better about that one star. Leaving a one-star review is not inherently rude—but the bar should be meaningfully higher than “I was mildly inconvenienced on a Tuesday.”
My two-page review of the haunted water park hotel, with its empty pool and bureau-against-the-door energy? One hundred percent warranted. I regret nothing. If I saved even one family from driving three hours to stand in a dark lobby choosing a room like contestants on Squid Game, that was a public service.
Have a social situation you can’t stop ruminating on? Email us at advice@tmbi.com, or message Charlotte on Instagram at @CharlotteHiltonAndersen.
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