Clickbait Catastrophe

In an age where news is instantly accessible, when the swipe of a finger gives you access to a world of media, how do news outlets make their posts stand out from the rest?

Clickbait.

We all know it, most of us loathe it. Clickbait is unavoidable when entering the trenches of the internet. An eye catching title that poses the facts in such a way that could be misleading to the reader, but is guaranteed to make them continue on to read the article. It sensationalizes the information contained in the article in such a way that makes readers stop and wonder, what DID happen when six corgi puppies were brought to a college campus? At the end of the day, nothing happened. Absolutely nothing. Those corgis ran amuck like any puppy would and while I’m sure the students had a great time playing with them, it’s not exactly hard hitting news.

In an ideal world, headlines would convey to the readers a basic idea of what the article will contain, a short and sweet summary of what to expect. Unfortunately, the days of informative headline writing are behind us and have been replaced with witty, tempting and more often than not, misleading titles that we click only to be disappointed upon reading the article.


Are we too far into the clickbait black hole to haul ourselves out? Or will we be slaves to the clicks for the rest of our careers? Click here to find out!