Why do people like clickbait?

Anonus

For the record, my idea of clickbait is moronic listicles...

Anonus

seriously, they feel like corporations trying too hard to be "with it"

Tanya

People are creatures of intrigue. they're curious little puppies who see something that couldn't possibly be true, but part of them has to find out whether it's really true or not. 

One-Winged Eagle

We don't.

Salix Babylonika

Sometimes Cracked articles are interesting, like this one.

that's kind of the extent of it

Haven

Like any kind of advertising, clickbait is most effective when you don't realize that's what it is and it slips past your defenses.

Salix Babylonika

Advertising for....document archiving?

Aliroz

Cracked on Archiving.  I don't want to read it.

They're too cynical, and would never believe in my "humanity will find a way to prevent paper from ever deteriorating and will find a way to save all of the archives" theory.

SHUT UP I SWEAR WE WILL FIND A WAY TO REVERSE ENTROPY, JUST SHUT UP, NOBODY ASKED YOU, REALITY.

-starts crying-

(NOTE:  Not really having feels right now.  This is a parody of what I am like when I have feels.)

Tachyon

'clickbait' is a pejorative, nobody likes it

the titles are supposed to pique your curiosity

possibly morbid fascination plays a role, or at least an element of 'what the heck is this one about'

sunn wolf

possibly contentious thought: there's nothing wrong with listicles in and of themselves, they are simply reflectiive of our changed reading habits driven by the internet - we now tend to readthings by dipping in and out of multiple sources now, and long-form extended pieces of writing without obvious interludes or breaks make this kind of reading habit much more difficult as it is less easy to dip in and out or start midway through, or leave before the end. a good deal of the popularity of listicles is that they are much more accommodating to this flaneurish 'aimless' browsing of the internet which is the default mode of using the internet for most of the peopleon it. as such there's nothing bad about listicles themselves. but as with everything these things vary in quality, and peoples ire towards the listicle in general is more misdirected anger at the kind of rubbish journalism often employed by cracked, buzzfeed et al, which tend to couch their """""content""""" in these kind of listicle formats. there are plenty of good listicles out there - i have no issue with someone reading for instance a FACT listicle detailing the best releases of the year, or the 40 best post metal releases.

the list as a journalistic form is perfectlyfine and there is a long and pproud tradition of the list as poetic form, for instance, and i welcome and look forward to the list form as something which can be used in interesting and creative ways in conjunction with new technology and our changing methods of reading

discuss

Obā-san

you know Buzzfeed Video can be pretty great

sunn wolf

i said 'often', buzzfeed can produce some quite good and funny things a lot of the time but they just produce a lot of dross too

Obā-san

that want in response to you that was just a general observation

Obā-san

Calica

buzzfeed has an actually decent political reporting team now which is the weirdest thing

Klinotaxis

I think conflating clickbait with listicles might be a problem... I mean you can broadly say clickbait means "crappy articles presented as headlines that seem interesting", or something, with no particular form for the content required. listicles are just a common form of crappy article dos they're pretty easy to write if you don't mind it being shit, whereas even the shittiest of essays at least takes more than a few minutes to bang out and edit.

imo this is decently well illustrated by how weird a clickbait headline would look on a newspaper, just because a front page story is, like, front page, physically there in front of you

sunn wolf said:

flaneurish

(hark a vagrant 357, at chirei 3/52)

Odradek

I wish they'd stop being so confrontational.

"10 idiotic lies about food production you think are true" 

I realize that gets them clicks, but still.

Obā-san

"15 things you can learn that will maybe help you be less of a pathetic, drooling moron, you subhuman filth"

Odradek

http://www.washingtonpost.com/lifestyle/style/benny-johnson-got-fired-at-buzzfeed-you-will-believe-what-happened-next/2015/06/09/da9fe3f8-e37f-11e4-b510-962fcfabc310_story.html This is what made me hate clickbait, and also white people.

sunn wolf

Klinotaxis said:

I think conflating clickbait with listicles might be a problem... I mean you can broadly say clickbait means "crappy articles presented as headlines that seem interesting", or something, with no particular form for the content required. listicles are just a common form of crappy article dos they're pretty easy to write if you don't mind it being shit, whereas even the shittiest of essays at least takes more than a few minutes to bang out and edit.

imo this is decently well illustrated by how weird a clickbait headline would look on a newspaper, just because a front page story is, like, front page, physically there in front of you

sunn wolf said:

flaneurish

(hark a vagrant 357, at chirei 3/52)

ya i was going off the whole 'my idea of clickbait is moronic listicles' thing and just going with some thoughts about listicles more generally

clickbait is also a consequence of the medium, a newspaper requires content that makes you not only want to buy it but continue buying it (this can result in poor quality journalism too, eg the daily express's continuing twin obsessions with Maddie and Who Killed Princess Diana, and in fact often does) whereas a lot of the more openly clickbaity sites are literally just looking for that click, that advertising revenue, and bingo, ya know once people are at your site you literally dont need to do anything more. so i suppose im going a bit mcluhan on yall

re flaneurish: i stole that off kenneth goldsmith basically. well not tacking the suffix -ish on it but applying the benjaminian idea to internet browsing like that. i dont actually wholly agree w it because i think theres a lot more depthto the way in which peopl make use of the internet. if the internet is a city, not everyone is wandering round, some ppl barely leave the same few rooms/ theres a lot of very deep obsessional reading that goes on too. but i think its a cool concept and certainly transposing those kind of topographies onto the internet is hella interesting