If You Write Clickbait, Don’t Read This Article
Clickbait is a gangrenous boil on the buttocks of humanity
Hello, my name is Erin, and I hate clickbait with the fire of a thousand suns. I won’t read it, write it, or click on it. I’ve quit writing jobs because I refuse to participate in the toxic dreck that is clickbait.
Yes, I know, I could sell part of my soul and make thousands of dollars a month writing bullshit for left-wing content farms, or I could sell my entire soul and make thousands of dollars a month writing bullshit for right-wing content farms. I’d rather drink goat urine.
Do I seem a wee bit enraged? I’m so sorry no I’m not. There are amazing writers out there who get zero attention because some website with a mile-long file at Politifact has hired a click farm or written bots or owns 700 Facebook pages.
What’s a click farm? You, if you are the smarmiest person in the world, can pay a company to plop an employee down in front of a computer and do nothing but click. Click likes, click comments, even click ads. I knew a liberal website that hired a click farm to increase their Google Adsense revenue. Google found out, and that very VERY large liberal website disappeared.
I’m fairly certain click farms are being used right here on Medium. Medium recommended an article to me this morning, an article so poorly written, I couldn’t make it past the third sentence. Guess what? The article has over 6,000 claps. So. An article that reads like one of those phishing emails in your spam folder, sent by a nice lady named “Mrs. Fletcher” who wants you to know her husband was a bishop in Kenya, and when he died, he left you $10 million USD, has over 6,000 claps. Either people on Medium are incredibly stupid (doubtful), or the “writer” uses a click farm. Some poor schmuck whose only job is to hold his or her mouse over the clap icon, and click.
There’s right-wing clickbait, like Gateway Pundit, Breitbart, and Newsmax. There’s left-wing clickbait, like Occupy Democrats, The Palmer Report, and The Other 98%. There are people writing clickbait on Medium promoting other clickbait sites, ones they most likely own.
Clickbait is destroying our intellectual curiosity. Clickbait is dumbing down society. Clickbait is driving us all farther and farther apart. Clickbait forces good writers off the internet every single day.
We can stop clickbait by not reading it, sharing, or writing it. I just don’t know if we will.
