The 5 Most Irritating Types of Clickbait on the Internet. #3 Made Me Hate Life a Little.

Clicks are the currency of the internet. And just like with actual currency, everyone's always trying to rob you of yours.

But since it’s apparently illegal to break into someone’s house and force them to visit your website, you’re left with two options: either A) create things so utterly awesome that people seek them out on their own, or B) manipulate the **** out of people so they click on your links without even realizing why.

(Not actually an ad. As much as we might want laser-eyed dinosaurs.)

Since it turns out A is actually really, really hard, here’s a list of the most annoying ways people try to achieve B.

THE FIVE MOST IRRITATING TYPES OF CLICKBAIT ON THE INTERNET

1.  Lists!

Why the hell are we so drawn to lists? Why is the mere fact that someone turns whatever they’re about to say into a set of bullets enough to make us curious what's on it?

Is it because lists make information easier to consume? Is it because we want the mild validation of thinking some invisible internet guru ranks things the same way we do? I can't be sure. But I do know I'm a sucker for anything in list form.

2.  Slapping an arrow on something so it seems intriguing

When we see a red arrow or a circle highlighting some grainy part of an image, we suddenly think there must be something important about it. Our curiosity kicks in, and soon we find ourselves clicking through to a sketchy website that's probably stealing our info just so we can get a glimpse of what we assume we missed. 

3.  Saying How You Reacted to a Specific Number in a List

A subset of #1, this is meant to do two things: first, to trigger your innate human curiosity, and second, to give you the impression that the link title wasn’t written BY THE BLOGGER WHO MADE THE LIST, but by some everyman/woman who totally gets you (I totally get you, though).

4.  Asking a Question So That People Decide to Comment

After years of internet trolling and comment battles, someone finally figured out how to harness all that weblog web-rage (webrage? brage?) for a quick bump in visibility. Turns out if you create the impression that people’s opinions matter, they comment more, and the sheer volume of participants makes you look popular. Do you agree? Comment below!

5.  Communicating Badly To Keep People Engaged

Turns out the easiest way to keep someone's attention is just to avoid telling them what they're trying to figure out. In a novel, this is called 'suspense.' Everywhere else, it's called being a jackass.

With all the competition on the internet today, I guess it was inevitable that someone would try to goad us into looking at things we're not really all that interested in. I will say, though, that since I started The Claw of Knowledge, I have a newfound respect for people who scrape their way to the top without resorting to click-baiting or other cheap tactics. It's easy to feel the urge to do it, but it seems like all the people whose comics I really respect took the high road and just focused on making good content.

BUT FOR THE LOVE OF ALL THAT IS HOLY PLEASE SHARE THIS POST WITH SOMEONE. OMG IT'S SO HARD TO GET ANYONE TO LOOK AT ANYTHING.


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