Clickbait!

Readers complain about clickbait titles, but do they really want the opposite and what exactly is a clickbait title?

You may accuse me of using a clickbait title in this case. Isn’t this title just designed to provoke and drag people in? This is what Wikipedia says about clickbait:

Click-bait headlines add an element of dishonesty, using enticements that do not accurately reflect the content being delivered.

Since this story is actually specifically about clickbait, I am not presenting it as something it isn’t in order to get readers. This is what bothers me with how people throw around the word clickbait. It is being abused in the same way as the concept “fake news.” Fake news began as a term for manufactured news about about events that did not even happen. But then Donald Trump began to use the term about any news that put him in a bad light or that was critical of him. Thus fake news has become synonymous with whatever news you don’t like or don’t agree with. News you think is biased and that contains opinions that you don’t share. But that is stretching the definition too far.

All news have some kind of bias, but that does not make it fake. Likewise, just because a title is provocative doesn’t make it clickbait; the content of the article may very well be a true reflection of the title.