Why is the internet obsessed with this vibrator? An investigation

The internet is swooning over the Tracy’s Dog vibrator, one of the latest additions to the suction sex toy craze. In her Amazon review, commenter Cloud D said that it cured her depression and she didn’t need to go to therapy anymore. It gave another reviewer a religious experience. “My soul left me and god himself said ‘Child, it is not your time, go back to the lil pink light,’" Express 7976 reported, adding that she is agnostic.

Look, I am 100% here for singing the praises of revolutionary sex toys, but I have never experienced one that treated mental illness or induced enlightenment, so these after-glowing reports made me wonder, “What’s all the fuss about?”

Perhaps the magic of Tracy’s Dog is that it claims to do the work of many toys (or a very skilled mouth). It sucks! It vibrates! It hits your g-spot! Add slicing and dicing, and it could replace 10 appliances in your home. And it’s only $43.99, which is pleasantly affordable for a quality toy. Tina Hsu, the marketing manager at Tracy's Dog tells me that the suction function helps women “get there fast.”

Okay, but how fast do we need to have orgasms? Is this really what’s driving female pleasure — increased productivity? Are we not interested in the scenic route?

I asked my friend, Nighthawk (not his government name, in case you’re wondering), a consultant in the adult entertainment industry, what he thought of all the hype around Tracy’s Dog. “People are lured in by the promise of being able to get off quickly and they are reassured by the overwhelmingly positive reviews,” he says. He then noted something that hadn’t occurred to me — sometimes reviews are fake. “I’m a little skeptical that many people took time to go sing praises of their vibrator on a public marketplace like Amazon,” he says.

It’s not actually weird for a product to have a few fake reviews, even if it’s a great product. It’s called review brushing.

What’s weird — almost disconcerting — about this sex toy’s reviews is that they are borderline fan fiction. One reviewer described using the vibe like this: “My eyes were rolling back in my head like I was summoning all 72 demons from The Lesser Key of Solomon at once.” I mean, okay RavenElle, but are you trying to get off or to get a book deal?

Nighthawk suggested that I use a few review-checking sites to see whether the hype on Tracy’s Dog was real. These sites use different algorithms that scan through all of a product reviews and look for suspicious patterns, like a high number of unverified reviews or repetitive wording. The results, when I tried it on Amazon were mixed. Fakespot gave the suction vibrator’s Amazon reviews a “high deception rating,” but ReviewMeta gave them a pass, so the jury is out on whether the reviews on the Tracy’s Dog vibrator are legit.

Personally, I have my fingers, toes, and labial folds crossed that they are. Tracy’s Dog offered to send me a sample to try, and I could really use a spiritual awakening right about now.