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Almost every headline that starts with Why is clickbait in my book. I want the headline to summarize the article/video (i.e. the answer), and if I'm interested

Almost every headline that starts with Why is clickbait in my book. I want the headline to summarize the article/video (i.e. the answer), and if I'm interested in learning more details I'll read the article or watch the video.

jchw 5y ago
That is an extremely wide net to cast as “clickbait”; the term was coined to describe Buzzfeed-style content wherein the subject matter itself is obscured but the headline is made to be attention grabbing, like “Doctors don’t want you to know this one weird trick…” or perhaps worse, an article where the headline suggests one thing but the actual story is essentially the opposite. In fact, I’d even go as far as to say this video isn’t burying the lede, either, because it is an exploratory video that goes through a progression to the conclusion. Therefore it is not burying the lede anymore than it would be “burying the lede” for a documentary to progress chronologically. And on top of that, while there’s nothing wrong with putting the key information in the title, an important component of being a successful content creator in any genre is in fact, coming up with engaging titles. “Why Pinball was removed” is a superior title to “Pinball was probably removed from Vista when they revamped the Windows Games” even though the latter is more information-dense. In my opinion the worst legitimate criticism that you can level is that the answer is not as definitive as one would hope. But I don’t think what you are leveling is all that fair; it feels like criticism against the genre of video more than the actual content itself. It wouldn’t be hurt by a tl;dw, but I’d rather follow the author to the conclusion myself, because I find the subject interesting, found the exploration interesting, and then I could understand the reasoning for the answer. If you didn’t enjoy the process that the video went through, I can only say that I would assert that you’re likely not in the target audience for that particular subset of video content and therefore it wouldn’t make sense to optimize it for you.

jchw 5y ago

That is an extremely wide net to cast as “clickbait”; the term was coined to describe Buzzfeed-style content wherein the subject matter itself is obscured but the headline is made to be attention grabbing, like “Doctors don’t want you to know this one weird trick…” or perhaps worse, an article where the headline suggests one thing but the actual story is essentially the opposite. In fact, I’d even go as far as to say this video isn’t burying the lede, either, because it is an exploratory video that goes through a progression to the conclusion. Therefore it is not burying the lede anymore than it would be “burying the lede” for a documentary to progress chronologically. And on top of that, while there’s nothing wrong with putting the key information in the title, an important component of being a successful content creator in any genre is in fact, coming up with engaging titles. “Why Pinball was removed” is a superior title to “Pinball was probably removed from Vista when they revamped the Windows Games” even though the latter is more information-dense. In my opinion the worst legitimate criticism that you can level is that the answer is not as definitive as one would hope. But I don’t think what you are leveling is all that fair; it feels like criticism against the genre of video more than the actual content itself. It wouldn’t be hurt by a tl;dw, but I’d rather follow the author to the conclusion myself, because I find the subject interesting, found the exploration interesting, and then I could understand the reasoning for the answer. If you didn’t enjoy the process that the video went through, I can only say that I would assert that you’re likely not in the target audience for that particular subset of video content and therefore it wouldn’t make sense to optimize it for you.