

The Onion launches Clickhole - danso
http://www.clickhole.com/article/what-clickhole-230

======
minimaxir
_I Can 't Believe The Onion Would Publish This Article About Linkbait. I'm
Shocked And Haven't Been Able To Sleep._

The funny thing about websites like BuzzFeed and ViralNova is that the
linkbait headlines they use are hard to parody since the truth is already much
stranger than the fiction.

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brickmort
It took me a good minute to see what they were really doing. Clickbait
websites were definitely in need of some pushback and I'm glad that the Onion
is behind it. Oh Onion, you clever bastards.

~~~
danielweber
The Onion uses those same clickbait websites as its advertising revenue. So
it's either brilliantly brave or completely dense of them.

 _EDIT_ Holy crap: [http://www.clickhole.com/video/video-seems-silly-it-makes-
go...](http://www.clickhole.com/video/video-seems-silly-it-makes-good-
point-264)

 _EDIT_ I just realized in lowerclase "clickhole" looks like "dickhole". Maybe
this was an obvious joke all along and I'm slow.

~~~
Istof
isn't this one better: [http://www.clickhole.com/video/what-adorable-little-
girl-say...](http://www.clickhole.com/video/what-adorable-little-girl-says-
will-melt-your-hear-286)

~~~
tootie
Excellent delivery. That girl has a bright future.

~~~
brightsize
Damn, she IS good. I hope this launches a career.

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csinchok
I worked on this! It was a pretty fun project, and I'm really excited to see
what the writers do with it.

~~~
mrspeaker
Did you work on the "ClickQuest achievement" stuff in main.js? "You're truly a
god amongst clickers. Trees bend to clear your path." I love it!

~~~
csinchok
Ha, I actually did not. That was my coworker's pet project (but the writers
drafted all the achievement names/text). Glad you like it, it was one of my
favorite features.

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jonnathanson
I think it's our god-given duty, as citizens of these United States and of the
Internet at large, to make Clickhole articles go more viral than articles from
BuzzFeed, ViralNova, etc.

The truly sad, but ingenious thing about this? Most of the clickers won't know
the difference.

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colanderman
The irony is this website is better implemented (more responsive, simpler to
navigate) than 99% of the "news" sites out there.

~~~
peterkelly
This is what gives away the fact that it's a parody

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morley
The site looks very promising so far. The Onion has been running listicle-type
articles for a while (in the form of captioned photo sets, bulleted lists, and
more) so this seems like a natural extension. And the Buzzfeeds of the world
certainly deserve the lampooning.

I love how there's a persistent click counter in the footer, which seems to be
implemented with localStorage and also seems to be tied to some badge system.

~~~
jcromartie
The Onion was lampooning infographics before they took off and evolved into
"listicles" at least 10 years ago.

~~~
mikeash
At least two decades. Here's one in an issue from 1994:
[http://www.theonion.com/articles/november-2-1994,10581/](http://www.theonion.com/articles/november-2-1994,10581/)

I imagine they go all the way back to 1988 but it's hard to dig them up....

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Aaronontheweb
Oh my god... their parody quizzes are
priceless:[http://www.clickhole.com/features/quizzes/](http://www.clickhole.com/features/quizzes/)

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worksaf
The article on publicly executing Ronald Mcdonald is priceless

[http://www.clickhole.com/blogpost/its-time-publicly-
execute-...](http://www.clickhole.com/blogpost/its-time-publicly-execute-
ronald-mcdonald-239)

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bkurtz13
For more from the front lines in the fight against linkbait, see this twitter
account:
[https://twitter.com/SavedYouAClick](https://twitter.com/SavedYouAClick)

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stygiansonic
Linkbait/Clickbait self-referential title announcing the website: "This One
Website Made a Fortune Just By Publishing Sensationalist Headlines - Truth Or
Fiction?"

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peterkelly
No native Android client? How am I supposed to ignore my friends and family in
social situations without this? :(

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rohitv

       $(window).unload(function(){
         localStorage.setItem("cqstate_v7", JSON.stringify({'achievements': {}, 'counters': {'clicks':998}}));
       });
    

Enjoy! :)

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heurist
They need to add markov generated comments to tie this all together.

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midnitewarrior
The Onion's version of BuzzFeed?

~~~
gegtik
Looks like The Onion's version of FeedBuzz [http://f.eed.bz](http://f.eed.bz)

