13 SHOCKING EXAMPLES OF CLICKBAIT - HOW THIS CLICKBAIT DID IT - CLICK HERE TO READ!
Oh, how I hate clickbait. You know the experience. You see something that catches your eye online. You go, "that looks interesting." You click on it and get into it, then realize at some point, "this isn't what I thought it was." Burdened with sorrow you kind of feel taken advantage of. Like someone just ripped money off of you or violated you. Maybe they got you to believe in something completely false before exposing you in front of the group, like a cruel joke or something where everyone is laughing at your expense.
You, my friend, have just fallen for clickbait. As an avid digital patron, I know your pain, and believe me; it's reign of terror upon the public runs deep. But don't fear. As a public service, Mosquito Cannon is coming to the rescue to alert you of these dangerous traps so you can be spared the horror. No, don't thank me. This is my honor as a blogger. I shall do everything I can to protect you. So without further pointless delays and wordiness that every clickbait is known for, I give you 13 examples of identifiable clickbait that you can avoid. It may save your life.
Haha, you fell for it. This is a favorite on Youtube. At worst I have seen a video promising a review of a brand new episode of a hot show that just came out, promising a "sneak peak". Then you realize that its fifteen minutes of an unrelated sitcom or even (kid you not) a video of some guys doing parkour somewhere. Seriously, that's ballsy clickbait.
Or you're looking for scores of the latest football or soccer game, hoping to catch the highlights, only to see someone post something like, Highlights: France 4 - 0 Germany. If you are smart you may remember France beat Germany at that score two years ago, but you might still be caught even if you have a good memory. Avid fans can even realize that Germany had never been seen losing that bad to France, and the upload is today so you are certain this is the new game. Then you realize they just showed highlights of three unrelated games where the cumulative score was 4-0. Haha, got you again!
The internet is just full of this garbage. At least some have the decency to put the smallest quip about the subject in the thumbnail into the video or article, a lot don't even bother with that. The reason they do it is so they can get more views and increase the chances you accidentally (because no one would really reward that crap, right?) click on an advertisement and help them get paid. That's it.
2. "Click NEXT to continue reading the story"
Man did you ever fall for this one. You're about to get strung along on an impossibly strung out story, stringing you up by the heart strings, strung out to dry while played like a string instrument. Get the idea? You'll flip through 19 pages about some guy getting ready for an epic adventure down a deep cavern, complete with important updates like; "they packed extra granola bars, just to make sure they had food to eat." Then the next page is, "...and a flashlight in case it was dark," before seriously fighting the urge to throw your phone across the room. But in the same way cults get you hooked by asking for a heavy donation up front, they get you invested at the beginning and now you have to make your time worth it so you keep investing, hoping it gets better...but it doesn't. You've been had. Sigh. Seriously.
These articles don't even try anymore. Half the pictures are stock images, and you finally learn on page 21 that they didn't find anything cool and just went home. If there was a way to google review some of these sites like you can brick and mortar businesses, you should do it. Because they deserve to be trashed in the review department.
You are probably wondering why, why play with people like this? Well, in the internet world, there are still sites that get paid by advertisers by the page view. Although this is extremely rare nowadays, there are still holdovers, mainly not in America. But it is also a gimmick to improve the footprint of the host site. Page views increase the sites visibility and help it get the attention of search engines. This presence increases the "value" of their virtual real estate and that can be used to earn advertising. So yes, they toy with your emotions to get you to click on the next page, or to go to the next image. Literally any gimmick to get you to keep clicking because you are helping them trick engines into thinking the site just got 20 visits from you instead of just 1. So you should feel good knowing you helped someone get their site notices, I guess.
No, just no. It doesn't matter what the article is about, it's a trap. Don't do it. Half the time the information is incorrect about what ever event they are claiming occurred, or the real event they are trying to portray. The other half of the time there's nothing interesting going on. Or, the twist is so scripted and predictable, you might as well just watch an old formulaic sitcom you've seen a thousand times or a a worn out mega-sequal like Police Academy 7, Scary Movie 5, Home Alone 3, Rocky V, Major League; Back to the Minors, or really any movie by Adam Sandler after Happy Gilmore; seriously, you'll enjoy it more.
Basically, you will believe what happened next, because it's honestly something entirely formulaic or predictable. Like, "YOU WON'T BELIEVE WHAT THESE KIDS ARE JUMPING INTO!" Yeah it was a swimming pool at the resort sponsoring the article. Yup...
4. "THIS IS NOT CLICKBAIT"
Yeah, it's clickbait. Just keep scrolling.
5. Reaction Videos
For whatever reason this has become a thing. People have whole channels where they watch other videos put together by others, and film themselves reacting to it. That's literally it. I mean, it works because people seem to have a thing for it, as evidenced by the thousands upon thousands of these uploaded to Youtube. But really they're just shooting themselves watching someone else's work. How low can you get for clicks, right?
The sad part is how some of Youtube's biggest names made their big money by doing just this. Would you believe some of the biggest names in Youtube just film themselves playing online games or watching movies and saying what comes to mind? Yup, it's that dumb. (I'm looking at Pewdiepie right now, not mentioning any names though...)
It's hard to believe that this is what the pathway to success has come to in our society. It's not "Go be a scientist, teacher, minister, or some other helpful member of society kid." It's way more disturbing than that. "Go be a Youtube star, son." "Gee, dad. That sounds hard. The film industry requires lots of resources and teams of people doing expert editing to make quality videos only to fail a lot of times and lose money." "What are you talking about. Just play video games like you always do and film yourself being a mindless prick and people will eat that up." "Thanks, dad! I'm so glad society will reward me for doing the right thing."
(head...desk)
5. "THIS WILL SHOCK YOU" or "SHOCKING DISCOVERY"
Basically, anything with the word "shocking" in it. Look, are you really falling for this one? I mean, you can keep hitting that beehive all you want, it's still not going to give you free honey. Sorry, that's just what you get for messing with a beehive.
You'll get the same unpleasant experience every time and if you are honesty, you are only falling for this because of that one time, (literally just one time, I guarantee it) that you found something interesting in there.
But not anymore. Those bees are coming out with a vengeance and you are about to be stung. Stay away for your own good.
6. Companies are trying to silence him, blah, blah.
Look, every once in a while you'll come across something cool. But just like sales has evolved to spam to death everything that people think of as trustworthy and attractive until they destroy it, they tear down that image and move on to your next safe haven. This is an example. If people click on it, it's going to fall prey to clickbaiters eventually.
There are hardly any genuine articles or videos about someone that big companies really hate, or are actually doing something innovative or industry threatening. Most of it is fluff, or even unrelated stories and articles. At worst they are actually clever advertisements for those very companies.
7. New Diet Has Amazing Results!
The miracle food keeps changing. Caffeine is bad, now its a wonder-drug. Anti-oxidants save you from cancer, now they don't exist. Bananas are a super-vitamin, now they will literally kill you! Seriously, it doesn't end. Smart food companies actually fund their own "super-food" campaigns just to boost their sales. And you know what, it works! That's because a products perception in the public eye is dependent upon the overall image of it.
Humans have this interesting thing where they can hear bad information, damning an item, organization, person, or idea. But if someone presents the opposite view with an air of confidence, even if they are totally lying, people will hold off on their judgments and take sides. It works in politics, why not with other things? In fact, it's a common radical-revolutionary political tactic that when you know you are guilty of something, you get up in your opponent's face and aggressively accuse them of your sin. Even if there is no evidence at all that they did it, the confidence of your claim will divide the public opinion and cast suspicion off of you. Ironically, we tend to pick up on this with people in our proximity, but fall for it all the time in the public eye. Heck, as well as this is done, Lard could make a comeback as a super-food.
8. This one simple trick made this guy millions
Yes, yes, of course it did. His simple trick was wise investing, got it. (unless you are the guy in the photo above...keep looking...you'll get it.)
Said successful millionaire in one year also started with millions of dollars in capital so that his 10% gain earned him "OVER $100K A YEAR!" Either that or he hit the jackpot in sales or clickbait, which you will likely never do. But he might if you keep clicking on his crap.
One of the 7 Facebook Wonders.
Really? This isn't even trying anymore. Please don't reward this. I don't want it in my Facebook feed anymore. I mean, how bad can this get?
"Comment your social security number below and see what your secret society name is." I mean, we were all hoping email scammers had taught people the lesson on this stuff, but apparently not.
Also a Facebook Wonder.
For the love of all that is holy, no. Stop it. Just stop it before you give people any more brain damage. Seriously, God is not watching the Facebook likes to see if someone can get healed and not sharing your clickbait isn't a sign you're ashamed of God. A Like is not a prayer, that...that just doesn't even compute...Just stop.
Yeah, it's probably eating healthy (like the sub-promoter's superfood) and lying about your age. That's really about it for this article. Once again, there was that one time you probably found it interesting, but like all things that once looked nice, they now reek of mistrust.
12. Anything with a sexy girl or hot guy in the thumbnail or picture
Just don't do this one. Yes, it's clickbait. Even if you think you might get what you want out if it, it's still going to disappoint you and it's not good for you; study upon study verifies that. I mean, you have to have some pride in yourself. If you go clicking on flagrant provocative images of babes or studs what does that say about you?
Before clicking imagine a future where your web history will be read aloud in public (happening sooner than you think). Do you want that on your web history? And Google keeps all of that my friend. Not just them, they all do. You don't want that coming out. It's not the incognito world you think it is. If you wouldn't want to be seen walking into the strip club during day with a local news station camera following you, don't click on the thumbnail. It's probably adware anyway.
For the love of God Almighty, DON'T OPEN IT! Not only is this clickbait, it's probably a link to spyware. At the most innocent this is a $100 "gift" when you purchase a cruise or something for thousands of dollars. I'm being serious here. This is where Clickbait crosses into malicious and begins rearing it's ugly head of identity theft and all sorts of nasty. Just don't touch it. It's like the STD of the internet.
But if you have fallen for it, don't worry. You're laptop or phone is only designed to last a couple years anyway to force you into upgrading, so by the time they can really do damage you will be replacing it. So look cheerful.
I am serious though. Clickbait is a menace and really should have been on my list of things destroying the world. In the near future it will be impossible to get impartial information as the product sellers and organizations with the big pocketbooks are able to drown out the voice of anyone else. Heck, it already happens. Want to pop up in Google Searches or on Youtube? Pay for it or build a massive footprint. Seriously. Most searches on Google can yield 3-5 adds before you get to organic searches. Some items pull pages of adds. How long before thats every conceivable search term?
But DON'T PANIC. There is a way to defeat this clickbait society taking over all of our information. You just have to avoid rewarding clickbaiters and stick to good, honest, sensible, well constructed, pages that deserve page views and the associated footprint...
Yeah, w'ere pretty much screwed.
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