
Why click bait articles are so effective - thepinchandzoom
http://www.thepinchandzoom.com/blog/2015/5/2/click-bait
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mapgrep
Because if they weren't effective, we wouldn't call them "click-bait." (In
other words, because you've tautologically defined "effective" as "getting you
to click.")

Behind the headline is a pretty shallow analysis. The author does not
meaningfully distinguish between headlines that hide the core piece of
information ("This One Weird Trick...") and headlines that bluntly state or
exaggerate the core piece of information ("Headless Man In Topless Bar"). The
author does not attempt to distinguish between aggressively conversational or
casual headlines (a post internet phenomenon) and headlines written in a
stiffer newspaper style or an explicityly hype-y tabloidy style. Nor does the
author explore why his/her examples of "yellow journalism" headlines are all
date from at least the early part of the 20th century — why did they then
disappear for more than half of it, and why are they back now?

Lastly, the author does not distinguish between negative costs of "clickbait"
headlines (squandering of reader time) and the benefits (enticing headlines
arguably fuel crowdfunding systems like Kickstarter and independent,
specialized news hubs like subreddits and HN).

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wahsd
In other words, humans aren't all that different than fish in that we respond
to base stimulus.

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anc84
Judging by the domain name I guess this is for ipads? Absolutely annoying to
read on my desktop with wide text, low contrast, whitespace all over the
place.

If you want to skip to the content, ctrl-F "let's take a look at them". It's
fairly low on content so nothing lost if you just skip it entirely.

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PhantomGremlin
There's a twitter guy[1] whose entire raison d’être is to "save you a click"
by giving you the gist. Problem is, there is nearly an infinite supply of
these articles.

For example, here's a recent tweet of his:

    
    
       Top 5: Warby Parker, Apple, Alibaba,
       Google, Instagram. RT @FastCompany:
       The most innovative companies of 2015:
    

[1] [https://twitter.com/SavedYouAClick](https://twitter.com/SavedYouAClick)

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zhte415
The irony of a click bait article being posted by a new account. Deliberate?

But it was good. And I was a new account once too.

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jonahx
Title should obviously be changed to: "Why you don't understand click bait
articles"

~~~
ibmthrowaway271
"7 reasons why you don't understand click bait articles"

~~~
emsy
"We had a look at clickbait articles. You won't believe what happened next..."

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nakedrobot2
I did not click on this meta-click bait.

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emodendroket
Users hate him! Local man discovers one weird trick to get people to follow
links to your Web site.

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TimWolla
This title forced me to click. But it was worth it.

