I think the issue being highlighted is that the ratings sometimes have not just little to do with the restaurant, but nothing to do with it. To become number one is something in itself. What happens afterwards (to not spoil it) is something above that entirely, and while it plays into the narrative being put forth, it goes well beyond what it needs to support that narrative and expose quite a bit of hypocrisy.

Fashion is subjective, but there's supposed to by quite a bit more to restaurants than just fashion, and I think it's obvious that sometimes there isn't much more. This whole story says a lot about people. Whether you think it says something about a certain type of people that you can look down on, or about people in general and how our expectations can lead us to weird places and inform our opinions much more than we would think, is up to the person watching.

Yes, it is surprising that you can manipulate the world’s top review site into having a completely fictional location full of fake reviews sitting at the #1 spot for a major city for a long time. If that’s not complacency, what is?