This sort of flash-over-substance internet feedback loop has cropped up in a number of different arenas. Five years back or so I was on the staff of a website that was created primarily to promote Halo multiplayer maps, to receive feedback, and to feature the talented creators in the community.

A great deal of excellent maps went through the site, but I became increasingly upset over what I saw as a shift towards presentation-over-substance with the original posts. If you wanted people to play a map, it soon became all but required to have a massive original post, with screenshots and "action shots" and flashy headers to catch people's attention. The focus became more on these OPs than the maps themselves. There was a movement towards standardising the process to reduce the flashy bloat, but it was unable to affect the changes I perceived as necessary, so I ended up leaving the community.

How can issues like these be fixed? Can they be fixed, or is it just a bug in the human code that superficial beauty halo effects everything else out of consideration? Perhaps communities of a certain size eventually reduce to a certain lowest common denominator appeal. I'm not certain.