What happens if you make article titles clickbait? Read this to find out.
Why is everything on the internet titled like straight up clickbait now? “I did (action) for (length of time). The results were surprising.” “(Person) did (action). Then this happened.” “This journalist sucked twenty large cocks in a row. Here’s his 8 simple rules for success.”
This kind of sensationalistic crap is what passes for writing these days, and it’s fucking sickening. It started with slideshow-style articles, but now the clickbait bullshit has infected and infested even major news outlets. Instead of clear and concise titles we have vaguely-worded hyperbole meant to dupe the most gullible of retards into clicking the article and reading the poorly written lines of text that are buried between the most obnoxious fucking ads that I’ve ever seen in my entire life.
As someone who’s been writing on the internet since 2003, I often find myself saddened and disgusted by the state of modern internet writing. Nobody knows how to write worth a damn anymore, everything is so bland, generic, and sterile (except of course the title, which always makes the article sound better than it actually is). People often ask me why I don’t “go pro” with my writing. Why bother? There’s no money to be made in being a writer that can actually fucking write. Clients don’t want quality, they want keywords, Google rankings, and other SEO bullshit. Everyone claims that they want to stand out from the competition, but nobody wants to actually do anything different from each other. Most articles on pretty much any subject are basically indistinguishable from one another, and I swear to God that most of these people are just copying and pasting each other’s work, maybe changing a few words here and there to avoid blatant plagiarism. If I had zero moral scruples I’d probably just grab articles written by others then rearrange them a little bit and sell them to dipshit SEO-obsessed clients. Then I’d go on the subreddit for freelance writers and watch them seethe as I brag about how I’ve made a mockery of their college degrees and struggles to find clients.
This shit is getting out of hand. It used to be just sites like BuzzFeed that used clickbait titles, but now legitimate (I use that term loosely here) media outlets are doing it too. CNN, CNBC, Fox, Bloomberg, the New York Times, pretty much any online news outlet now uses these bullshit clickbait titles. Here’s a screenshot from my Google News feed of an article that’s been there for several days now:
Literally who are you, who is your 95 year-old Japanese grandfather, and why the fuck should I care about his “non-negotiables” for a long happy life (conveniently presented in list format because list articles are easy to churn out)? Fuck that, I want to hear his stories from World War 2. You know this guy has seen some shit. This old fuck probably killed dozens of American soldiers and watched us stomp a mud hole in Hirohito’s ass at Iwo Jima, then lost half his family when we nuked Hiroshima and Nagasaki. Tell us about that, not some feel-good hackneyed crap about living a long life. This guy’s first non-negotiable for living a long happy life should be “Don’t piss off America”, because he’s gotten to see firsthand what happens if you do.
Here’s another screenshot from my Google News feed:
Why do financial sites always feel the need to tell me what Warren Buffett is doing? Does anyone actually care what Warren Buffett is doing? I sure as hell don’t. You know what Warren Buffett is doing? Keeping his name in the news and making more money. Why does everyone act like Warren is some kind of wealthy lovable grandpa that wants everyone else to be rich too and gives honest and thoughtful advice? Warren Buffett is rich because he was the son of a Congressman/businessman. Yes, he did make a lot of good investments, but he was only able to do so because he came from money. Putting aside the fact that he made his fortune in a different era and different market, people like you and me can’t afford to make the investments and financial moves he did to get rich. I don’t actually know how to get rich, but I do know that it doesn’t involve reading fluff pieces about what Warren Buffett is doing.
Writers who rely on sensationalism are usually bad writers and just trying to hide that fact by manipulating readers into clicking on their shitty articles with pointlessly provocative titles. They have no heart, they have no soul, and they have no talent. But what they do have are college degrees, questionable moral integrity, and the ability to generate clicks and ad views.
I guess that’s more important than actually having something worthwhile to say, right?