
A Taxonomy of Internet Chum (2015) - firloop
https://www.theawl.com/2015/06/a-complete-taxonomy-of-internet-chum/
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Bartweiss
> _Clicking on a chumlink — even one on the site of a relatively high-class
> chummer, like nymag.com — is a guaranteed way to find more, weirder, grosser
> chum. The boxes are daisy-chained together in an increasingly cynical, gross
> funnel; quickly, the open ocean becomes a sewer of chum._

This seems like a particularly interesting point.

Presumably 'chum' ought to be higher-impact than the source page, so as to
beat out "Related Articles" links, other open tabs, or leaving the computer.
(After all, you just read an article of mental impact X, so you're someone who
cares about stories of >X value.)

But there's a limit on how fast you can ramp up - you can't go straight to sex
and death without provoking whiplash and disgust. So we get the weird
progression that's come to define the internet; the outbound links for a given
page are always weirder than the page itself.

Hence "the weird part of Youtube". Hence the 4chan -> Reddit -> Buzzfeed
progression by which content is generated in strange spots, then sanitized for
mass consumption. And hence the bizarre sponsored-content funnel: stock news
leads to stock tips leads to pyramid schemes leads to "BUY GOLD!" Either you
cash out somewhere (some of those sponsored links go to products, not
'stories'), or you stick to news and teaser sites, and head arbitrarily far
down the rabbit hole.

~~~
hyperpape
I believe there's also a reputation issue. Established brands typically don't
want their brand associated with disreputable things. So once your site is
peddling chum, the New York Times doesn't want to advertise, even if you'll
offer them cheap rates.

This is apparently why the popup ad was first created:
[https://www.theatlantic.com/technology/archive/2014/08/adver...](https://www.theatlantic.com/technology/archive/2014/08/advertising-
is-the-internets-original-sin/376041/?single_page=true).

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mattkevan
Although a few years old, this article gets more relevant all the time as this
kind of chumvertising gets incorporated into ‘native’ ads.

Chum seems to go in phases, and always worse. A while ago it was
‘Dermatologists hate her!’, recently it’s ‘What $celebrity looks like now will
shock you!’

Like the recent debate about chum kids YouTube videos, it’s probaby
automatically generated based on what gets the most ‘engagement’.

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jasode
Internet chum has a lot in common with paper-based chum like tabloid
newspapers:

[https://www.google.com/search?tbm=isch&q=national+enquirer+s...](https://www.google.com/search?tbm=isch&q=national+enquirer+star+globe+tabloids)

I see shared techniques of exclamation marks in headlines and showing human
faces in distress...

\- faces caught mid-expression with anger and mouths open like wolves showing
fangs (Michelle Obama, Tom Cruise, Dr. Phil)

\- Angelina Jolie crying

\- photos of celebrities in caskets

In contrast, People Magazine still has some exclamation marks but a lot less
of it than the tabloids:

[https://www.google.com/search?q=people+magazine+covers&sourc...](https://www.google.com/search?q=people+magazine+covers&source=lnms&tbm=isch)

(But many would consider People, US, Cosmopolitan, etc to be "chum" as well.)

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camtarn
Note: if you have trypophobia (fear/disgust of irregularly spaced holes -
especially in organic things) watch out for the images in this article. The
example of a 'chumbox' (grid of spammy links) includes an image which made me
feel a bit ill, and because it's repeated all down the article, I had to just
stop reading :(

~~~
grkvlt
The act of translating some random noun ('hole' in this case) and the word
'fear' into Greek does not automatically mean that a recognised mental
disorder involving fear of that particular thing exists. In fact, Wikipedia
cites several sources that explain this is merely a 'proposed' mental disorder
[0] and is not officially recognised.

0\.
[https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Trypophobia](https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Trypophobia)

~~~
fenwick67
The fear of any particular thing is recognized in the DSM as a "specific
phobia". Irrational fear of cotton balls, holes in a pattern, the color orange
etc. all fit under this umbrella.

~~~
grkvlt
OK, that's a good point, but I still think in this case it's better to simply
say that people have "a phobia of holes or objects with a pattern of holes"
rather than translating the word holes into Greek to create a complicated new
word for no real reason except to sound 'medical' and impressive.

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PaulHoule
What I don't get is that there is so little diversity of Chum. It seems like
the same 6 advertisers are funding the whole thing.

~~~
0xCMP
And also, what do they actually get from this? Affiliate links? How do they
make money?

~~~
duskwuff
Probably some combination of:

* "Funnels" to affiliate marketing products (like the diet pills referenced in some of the ads).

* Similarly, funnels to sign up for marketing email lists.

* Driving traffic to other pages with more lucrative advertisements on them, which is every bit as circular as it sounds.

~~~
watmough
Agreed. Sad little boxes of anti-aging pills regularly appear at the door for
my mother in law who is a prime target for these old people / skin thing
funnels.

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wffurr
I found myself wondering what the NY Magazine art critic would think about
having "chum" at the end of their piece, and then decided they would say
"those ads pay my salary, artistic integrity is for schmucks".

