Don’t you just love clickbait headlines in online media?
Clickbait story titles ask a question or state a fact or attitude that prods your curiosity or stokes your outrage. It bothers you so much that you just have to click on that teasing headline to discover the truth or fight the falsehood.
It’s a simple process: a journalist baits the hook with an irresistible headline and I bite – click!
“Health clue hidden in photo of Kim Jong un”. At last – this is my big chance to shine as a medical detective and waste my life examining a grainy photo pixel-by-pixel. Click.
“Bold easing of coronavirus restrictions coming – but there’s a catch.”
Of course there’s a catch – otherwise I wouldn’t read the story – so I must click on it. I am compelled to click on it by expert baiting of the clickbait hook and my own lack of self control.
What was the catch that caught me, hook line and sinker? Continue on to discover the answer, dear reader….
Before I clicked on the baited headline a few possibilities about the “catch” flashed through my mind. Would we all have to wear huge plastic water cooler bottles on our heads with the bottom cut out as some enterprising souls have done during the pandemic? Wearers of these PPE-FTOs ( personal protective equipment from the office) protect themselves by leaving the lid screwed down on top of the bottle while breathing through the open gap at the bottom around their shoulders.
But no, the catch before “Bold easing of restrictions” can occur is not wearing a water cooler bottle on your head. The catch is to continue with physical distancing. How boring compared with compulsory wearing of water cooler bottles. However I am looking forward to physical distancing in my tiny local coffee shop when it reopens. It has three tables to sit at and it is usually uncomfortably crowded. By my calculation, at 4 square metres per person, I will be the sole customer there for as long as I want to stay sitting down. Cool.
Clickbaiters use a variety of baiting methods, all of which are effective on me. One tried and true baiting approach is The “Jewel in the List” method. For example:
“ 9 things no one knew about Princess Leia. Number 7 will blow your minds!” with a photo of a concerned but determined Princess Leia in an early Star Wars film (actress Carrie Fisher).
Was mind blowing Number 7 the truth behind her “double cinnamon bun” hairstyle? Did she just want to celebrate her love of cinnamon buns, or is there another more sinister purpose? Was the mind-blowing Princess Leia secret about how much she enjoyed killing Jabba the Hutt? As Carrie Fisher is quoted as saying in 2014 ”the only reason to go into acting is if you can kill a giant monster” ** Click click click! I’m hooked. I must find out. And you need to find out too, now I’ve led you on.
One of my all-time favourite clickbait headlines is super enticing because it concerns that warm, sweet, crumbly, straight out of the oven treat – banana bread. What apple pie was to a previous generation banana bread is to many today.
“Shocking truth about banana bread that doctors won’t tell you” screamed the headline.
This was not just what your mother won’t tell you about banana bread (“I have to confess dear, that I have 300 loaves of banana bread in the freezer”).
This is what doctors won’t tell you about banana bread. What has my friendly local general practitioner been withholding from me all these years, potentially endangering my life and limbs?
So what is this shocking banana bread truth?
Read on fellow clickbaitees.
The best thing about this particular clickbait is that it is 100% pure unadulterated clickbait, with no pretense about being truthful in any way. The truth is that there are no shocking truths about banana bread which doctors or anyone else refuse to divulge. But the possibility of shocking truths about banana bread is so ludicrous and outrageous and we can so imagine biting into a slice, spread with butter, that we must click on it in order to defend the honour of banana bread and the integrity of our fellow loyalists.
When I searched for the clickbait headline about banana bread I found random dance moves, pedestrian guitar playing and an article which apologized at the beginning for clickbaiting me and then explained why clickbaiting is unethical and should not be used. Huh? But they just ….
Three times I had been clickbaited and caught out.
Before you leave this story I’m sure you want to know the lifesaving technique of my story title which saved a poor parent overwhelmed by teaching her child at home during the current pandemic. You see, clickbait is irresistible.
Was this technique a new app that makes teaching children a breeze? Sorry, no.
Was it a lesson reward that is irresistible to children, like banana bread? Again, no.
Was it a mind control method involving hypnosis and red hot raw chilli? Wrong again.
Give up? This parent discovered that using games to teach her child was the secret sauce which rescued her from overwhelmingness.
How about that – fun is more effective than force for helping children learn. Who’d have thunk it?
** wikipedia.org/wiki/Princess_Leia
Geoff Milton 2020 ©
