10 THINGS THEY'RE NOT TELLING YOU ABOUT CLICKBAIT ARTICLES!!
Regardless of what I may say about clickbait titles, I must concede that they are incredibly effective. Proof: you. (First of all, let me assure you that this will decidedly not be an exciting list, as the title implied -- so feel free to move back from the edge of your seat. You will, indeed, believe the rest of this article.) Let's be fair -- journalism has always had to be at least slightly sensational in order to draw public attention (ahem, ad money). Coming up with a title for an article that is optimized to generate maximum reader interest and to impart its contents effectively is a delicate balancing act. Pretend we're in the triassic period (or whenever it was that people actually read physical newspapers). A customer approaches a newspaper stand. Your objective is to get that customer to purchase and read the article in your paper and not the article in your competitor's paper, although both will contain essentially the exact same information. Now, we are not trying to attract our potential customer to a specific newspaper, but instead to a specific webpage. And it's far easier to view a webpage than it is to go out and buy a newspaper (illustrated below). Buying a newspaper - put on something that isn't pyjamas - go outside - walk to newspaper stand - purchase newspaper Viewing a webpage - no need to change out of PJs - no need to go outside (the light burns) - no need to expend energy by getting up and walking anywhere - no (significant) financial expenditure, either, especially if Mom and Dad pay your internet bills Accessibility does not, however, automatically translate into "bad" content. Obviously, publications like The New York Times or Washington Post have already established reputations for themselves which they intend to uphold, and readers will be drawn to them because of that. But I'm not making a point about the medium through which information is delivered. The point I am trying to make is: journalism is an institution, and a respectable one at that. It has standards. It's a staple of any society. You retrieve information, you write about it, you maintain a "neutral position" by introducing a subtle bias to pander to your demographic of interest, you do a final edit, you publish. Clickbait, on the other hand, has no standards and is an incontrovertible plague upon society. In the age of the Internet, we are constantly bombarded with information. It becomes redundant (in other words, redundancy ensues). This is because anyone can cast out their ideas and opinions into the world, even if they have nothing important to say nor any valuable experience with writing. Proof: me. There is no escape from clickbait. It has infiltrated all that is sacred in this world (e.g., Facebook). Why is this such a big issue? Well, let's say that you're a burgeoning author (or at least one trying to burgeon). You're fully aware of the roundabout of need-experience-to-get-a-job-to-get-experience, which is just as frustrating and difficult to enter as an actual roundabout. But this only applies for big-time publications. So, you take to the Internet, knowing that it is a hub of low standards. You then find yourself in a market oversaturated with seemingly infinite not-really-exceptional pieces written about the exact same thing. Anything you send out will immediately drown in the sea of things other people have written. You have no choice but to abandon your journalistic integrity and start out your career by writing about an ordinary mom whom doctors hate. And now you're contributing to the problem. I think that I'm expected to offer a solution here after that bleak story. Unfortunately, I don't really have anything solid. However, I can say that the market responds to what potential customers want. By actively avoiding clickbait-y articles, we can reduce the web traffic that they generate and, consequently, their value. This is useless information, because excitement and drama are appealing to a lot of us and that will not change any time soon. So maybe this entire thing that you just read was a waste of time. Pointless. But it does have an exciting title.
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