​Seen a honey-trap ‘clickbait’? You’ll never believe what it does to you!

It must be old school of journalism to think headlines must be ‘crisp, pithy and just enough evoke the curiosity’ so that the readers get hooked to the story.

That was then. Today, when Internet is ruling the roost, and people are browsing the content from their smartphones, you obviously need to redefine your writing, so as to drive the readers and the new model of revenue that’s getting generated.

Clickbait has been the keyword of Internet in the recent times. Like all brilliant innovations, clickbait was something that was discovered by mistake when Michael D Higgins, then a foreign policy spokesperson for Ireland (now the President), went on radio in Galway and excoriated an American talkshow host for opposing President Obama’s plans to bring about universal healthcare. The audio file that was created in 2010 was lying around in the safe deposits of the company till Mansur Gidfar came by two years later in 2012, and simply uploaded that file on to the growing site Upworthy.com. All it took was a new headline that said “A tea partier decided to pick fight with a foreign president. It didn’t go down so well.’

The headline, by conventional norms was a complete misfit. Had it been passed to a sub-editor, it could have lost a good deal of words, till it became a boring single line teaser. But, since no such ‘sub’ was around, the audio file simply went viral. Even Gidfar in his wildest dreams didn’t think he would break Internet with this file. But that’s exactly what happened. The article went berserk and generated a million hits for the site, and eventually,history was made.

Then, the world sat and wondered. What was ‘right’ about that headline that was so wrong? The wrongs had made it right with all the redefining terms being present in it. Today, just for the record, Upworthy is a known as a million hits site, with its heartfelt and progressive content that keeps driving hits from all across the world.

Let’s admit it. Clickbait is addictive, and in more ways than one, its innovation has changed the way content is viewed on Internet today. The headlines and articles have been replicated all over, and the number simply keeps growing.

As far as Upworthy is concerned, clickbait is something that has become its essential part. If not for clickbaits, Upworthy doesn’t make much sense.

Is there a science to clickbait? Can we study it to crack it completely? Nope, there is more art than science in clickbait. But what about the data that’s available to prove that clickbaits work when coupled with certain and particular type of words? For instance, a headline that says, “This boy went hungry for six days. You won’t believe what he did next to get a free lunch,” is surely an attention grabber. And this is what has been working as a clickbait. In simple terms, people across the income groups and ethnicities are great suckers to watch the unexpected part. The ‘you won’t believe’ belies a fire that can drive the numbers for the Internet.

This is not to say such stories aren’t inspiring. In fact, today Internet has successfully replaced the classics and other genre of books to deliver people their share of readable surprise. When this happens, it is sure to make use of the basic realities that have the human mind for their lab of experiment.

Clickbait is alluring and seductive. The ultimate honey-trap that has surfers come back for more, clickbait is simply addictive. This was the base for Facebook research scientist Khalid El-Arini and product specialist Joyce Tang to say social network was cracking down big time on articles that have clickbait headlines. Zuckerberg, obviously, won’t waste time on anything that isn’t his competition. And a very impersonal clickbait has turned into his mega nightmare that he has to act upon. Internet is a strange place where virtual reality can often cloud the perception of what is obvious, and when it gains the power to become potent, the shareholders begin to get a little dizzy over its unexpected success.

There is buzzfeed, scoopwhoop, the onion, the blaze, and a host of other sites may be offering different content under various headers.
At its core, clickbaiting can be termed ‘irresponsible’ for not revealing much about the content people are about to read after clicking on the link. But, it is the joyful share of clickbaiters anyway to take away a big slice of the Internet pie, without having to struggle too hard about positioning of the article or marketing it to generate revenues.
(Image: steve-lovelace.com)