One of the worst inventions in the history of writing is the clickbait headline. Yes, people have used writing to do things far more nefarious than luring audiences into ad-infested articles about shocking celebrity scandals and botched plastic surgeries, but is there any device of writing that more consistently and more effectively assaults the intelligence of tens of millions of readers daily?
Maybe it’s because they are so effective that clickbait headlines make me so fussy. After all, the reason we see so many is because they work. People click them even when they know better. And because people can’t help themselves (myself included), the clickbait headline fuels an entire industry. I see a ridiculous headline, I know the payoff cannot possibly exist, but I’m still itching to know if my wife will leave me because she’s exhibiting “these 7 signs.”
These headlines work at the subconscious level, turning readers into victims of their own psychology. This is not just annoying, it’s infuriating.
But I was taught to channel anger into something positive like say…parody. So in the spirit of the phrase, “If you can’t beat them, join them,” here are 19 mouth-watering headlines you might see on a writing website.
He forgot to use a comma. What happened next will leave you in tears
Steven Pinker’s net worth doesn’t make any sense
What Shakespeare looks like now will leave you speechless
This simple tactic has writing teachers freaking out
This kid’s thesis statement will give you goosebumps
The writing strategy nobody is talking about
15 totally unethical writing strategies your audience will love
How the subordinate clause saved my marriage
This unbelievable writing hack will improve your sex life
He corrected people’s grammar at a Trump rally. What happened next will scare you
Grammar Girl finally confirms the rumors
5 shocking lines King was forced to cut from On Writing
Only real Americans can ace this usage quiz
7 phrases that will make you sound smart, even though you’re not
9 famous serial killers who were actually good at writing
Banned: Magic pill increases sentence length
Study: Cultural bias to blame for lack of transitions in the writing of Alt-Right groups
Lennon and McCartney once fought over this punctuation mark (It led to a hit)
Is your boyfriend cheating on you? He is if his sentence structure looks like this…
Now that I’ve gotten that off my chest, maybe I can get back to writing something more useful, though I have a feeling that somewhere there’s a clickbait artist who just got 19 good ideas for their next article.
[…] I realized the importance of a headline, I asked myself, do writers have to write clickbait headlines just to be […]