Anyone who has friended me on the Tweeter or followed me on the Facebooks knows that I’m not great with modern technology. My collection of accidental pocket FaceTiming experiences has grown so large it rivals the population of Wyoming. If someone asked me what happens when their content goes viral, I’d probably refer them to an infectious disease specialist. My favorite artists and musicians have fan bases with an average age on par with Arlington National Cemetery.
Yet, as The Diamondback’s self-appointed expert humorist and universally acclaimed meme-queen, I’m tasked with generating cutting-edge social lampoonery, and more importantly, getting people to read it. However, as a hopeless curmudgeon with the social media presence of a grandmother who can’t forward you an email from her AOL account without accidentally hitting caps lock, I needed a bold new strategy to rack up those all-important likes, shares, swipes, snaps, loops, pokes, pinches, snuffles and retweets.
Enter the art of click-bait.
For those of you who have never been tricked into visiting a page titled “Scientists discover shocking new cure for elbow jaundice,” “The Harambe video Obama doesn’t want you to see,” or “All 101 Dalmatians ranked from hot to not,” click-bait is the hyperbolic exaggeration of an article’s headline, crafted for maximum attention and minimal effort and accuracy. Since the latter stands as the guiding principle of my personal journalistic ethics, I’ve assembled the top five phrases to raise my click-bait game to the level of Gawker (R.I.P. 2016).
• Has science gone too far? Researchers discover shocking new animal hybrid.
• Scandalous revealing Bill Nye hidden camera footage!
• Leaked photo of Kim riding bareback almost breaks the internet.
• Nicolas Cage as you’ve never seen him before!
• You won’t believe Trump’s epic side-boob clapback …
Reuven Bank, Opinion Editor and click-bait connoisseur, is a sophomore ecology and evolution major. He can be reached at reuven.bank@yahoo.com.
