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Five Reasons to Hate Clickbait (Number 6 Blew Me Away!)

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Last Updated on February 10, 2022

Clickbait is one of the unfortunate side effects of the race for page views and engagement on social media.

I won’t ask whether you like clickbait, because it might be the dumbest question I’d ask all year.

Clickbait is content that generally features a particularly provocative headline and often promotes a list with an additional mention of a single item on the list that is especially noteworthy in the hopes that people will, at the very least, make it that far.

Lately, clickbait articles seem to always involve slideshows on slow-loading sites that make getting through the slideshow one of the worst user experiences since auto-play videos.

Not that some articles that draw people in through the dubious practice don’t have value, mind you, but it’s just the seemingly dishonest way they do it that can be such a turnoff.

The formula is now so well known (much like the headline I used for this post), that you can see clickbait from a mile away.

(In case you’re wondering, I don’t really have a list of five things; I figured you might appreciate the humor of offering a list of five things, then remarking on how amazing the presumably non-existent sixth might be.)

I’m sure you’ve seen examples of this, but in case you haven’t, there’s a new “worst breed” of clickbait that’s becoming more and more common. Allow me to describe the kind to which I refer.

Imagine your favorite television show or movie from the 1970s or 1980s. Got it? Good. You’re browsing around and you see a link to a story called “8 Things You Didn’t Know About the Cast of [Insert Title Here.]” Curious, you click the link and you find yourself taken to a website full of advertising including even auto-play video ads! In the center of the clutter is the first frame of a slideshow. The first image is one of the cast members and below it is the same title of the article that you clicked to get here.

Below the image is a “Next” or “Forward” button. You click it.

The whole page reloads, slowly, element by element. The photo reloads, too. It’s the same one you just saw, of the same cast member. This time, below the image is the actor’s name. Nothing else.

You click “Next.”

The whole page reloads again. Same photo. Actor’s name below it. Now a second line of text appears that explains that this actor portrayed the character of [Insert Character’s Name Here].

You click “Next.”

The whole page reloads again. Some pieces take longer than others. Same photo. You’ve now seen it four times. The actor’s name is immediately below the picture, but the line about the name of the character he portrayed has been replaced with some random trivia fact you probably already knew to begin with.

You click “Next.”

Wow! Once things start loading, you realize you’re looking at a different image. Your heart nearly skips a beat. Below this picture is the actress’s name.

You can see where this is going. Clicking next makes you look at the same picture multiple times just so you can get dribs and drabs of the “trivia” you were promised. If you’re patient enough to deal with everything reloading (and, depending on the speed of your internet service, the amount of time all of this takes), you might learn something about the show you loved.

But chances are there’s little useful information here. Because it’s not about educating you or entertaining you. Instead, it’s all about the page views for the website. The web developer doesn’t really give a damn how long it takes you to go through the info. He’s clearly not interested in the user experience, either. If he were, he’d have actually tried it for himself, seen how truly horrible it was, and redesigned it by now.

But that doesn’t happen when it’s only about page views.

And why is it, when there are, say, 17 things in a list you need to see, that it’s always number 8 or 10 or 14 — deep into the list — that “blows someone away” or “makes someone cry” or any of the other additional teasers that make you want to get that far into the list? Because they know how lousy the experience is and simply don’t care; they know you don’t even want to get to the end after the first few pages. But if there’s something really special at the eighth slot, maybe you’ll at least get that far.

The way to help eliminate some of these pages, of course, is to stop clicking the links. That’s what I’ve started doing.

At first, I’ll admit, it was hard sometimes. But now it’s not hard at all: I’d rather take my time back rather than waste it looking through that brutal a presentation.

Maybe if everyone else would stop falling for those clickbait headlines, people would finally stop using them.

Don’t you think it’s time they went away?!?

the authorPatrick
Patrick is a Christian with more than 30 years experience in professional writing, producing and marketing. His professional background also includes social media, reporting for broadcast television and the web, directing, videography and photography. He enjoys getting to know people over coffee and spending time with his dog.

2 Comments

  • I have found myself not getting sucked into these anymore for all the reasons you presented plus one more, which I will get to in a moment, if you can hold on that long!

    Ha, ha, ha.

    I’m curious about something you mentioned, however, and hope you will reply: why is the primary goal of this special form of torture to just get page views? It isn’t about luring potential shoppers in to the site in the hopes of parting a fool and her money? Usually it’s women that seem to fall for impulses shopping which inevitably is utterly useless junk that we paid far too much for.

    The final reason that keeps me from too many of these Top [insert number here] Lists is that the arrows that one is supposed to touch or click is not truly aligned correctly (and I know it is completely by design, rather than mistakenly). They also look exactly the same as every other arrow on the page, and all too often lead one to an advert rather than the next page. That makes me crazy.

  • I, too, have stopped clicking on those links. Perhaps if more of us stop participating in these, they will have to come up with something else.

    I hope.

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