You are familiar with sites that regurgitate content with provocative headlines as linkbait. You see them on your Facebook wall or as the “related content” gnawing at the edges of web pages. They are fond of lists, gifs, splitting small amounts of content across multiple pages, and generally working their content-to-ad ratio as much as possible.
They are now getting over the headlines of “You won’t BELIEVE what…” and “this one WEIRD thing” that will change your life/pant size/gender. Which is sad, because folks were working on a browser extension to get rid of them. This month, you instead get five dozen headlines advertising a list of similarly AMAZING regurgitated content where some random number is cited as totally worth clicking the link to see their ads. “12 postcards from CHILDREN that will INSPIRE you to be a better person! #6 is a must-see.” “31 Sandwiches that will CHANGE how you see CILANTRO. #17 will REARRANGE your SOCK drawer!”
Comments are open for your bets on the next viral headline template.
: Zubon
Every headline on every site is changed to “click here to read more”. The information addicts won’t be able to help themselves..
My vote for next trend is:
“Comments are open for your bets on the next…”
I wondered who was going to put the punchline on that setup.
Happy to be ‘that guy’.
“Link opens in a new tab.”