3 ms·

If working life is about being paid for your time by providing valuable skills, paying, or learning for yourself, to get useful clickbait seems like every other

by yomly 7y ago

If working life is about being paid for your time by providing valuable skills, paying, or learning for yourself, to get useful clickbait seems like every other skill to me. Ultimately it's a bit like all other interpersonal communications so if you enjoy making headlines or captions or brand spiels you can probably learn to love clickbait titles. Though if all of that is wooly to you then yeah it's probably not your cup of tea, but I can assure you for people who have invested in that skill they probably quite enjoy the thrill of trying to craft the perfect clickbait title and now in the age of data the success of it is measurable, creating a tighter feedback loop...

munificent 7y ago
> they probably quite enjoy the thrill of trying to craft the perfect clickbait title and now in the age of data the success of it is measurable, creating a tighter feedback loop... They probably do, but they get that thrill at the emotional expense of the consumers. It's a fundamentally selfish act. "Clickbait" really means that the title sets an expectation in the viewer that is more engaging than the content itself actually is. The viewer clicks and then ends up disappointed because the actual content is less rewarding than the title suggested. But at that point, the author's already claimed their precious ounce of attention and got what they wanted. The name stuck for a reason. Fish don't end up happy that they ate the bait. Only the fisher does. So I don't think we should be happy that people find this skill thrilling or rewarding any more than we should laud the thrill of a skilled pick-pocket or con artist.
- ghaff 7y ago
  Headline writing has been a skill since long before there were clicks. Sure, headlines can veer into the misleading and there are certain particularly annoying online patters. But the whole purpose of a headline is to entice you to read.
  - deleted 7y ago
    [deleted]

by yomly 7y ago

munificent 7y ago

> they probably quite enjoy the thrill of trying to craft the perfect clickbait title and now in the age of data the success of it is measurable, creating a tighter feedback loop... They probably do, but they get that thrill at the emotional expense of the consumers. It's a fundamentally selfish act. "Clickbait" really means that the title sets an expectation in the viewer that is more engaging than the content itself actually is. The viewer clicks and then ends up disappointed because the actual content is less rewarding than the title suggested. But at that point, the author's already claimed their precious ounce of attention and got what they wanted. The name stuck for a reason. Fish don't end up happy that they ate the bait. Only the fisher does. So I don't think we should be happy that people find this skill thrilling or rewarding any more than we should laud the thrill of a skilled pick-pocket or con artist.

ghaff 7y ago
Headline writing has been a skill since long before there were clicks. Sure, headlines can veer into the misleading and there are certain particularly annoying online patters. But the whole purpose of a headline is to entice you to read.
- deleted 7y ago
  [deleted]