O Clickbaiting! How Did Capitalism Ever Get Along without Thee?? 

It appears that advertising as a profession and a business arose in the late 19^th century.[1] With the advent of digital media, we are probably confronted with hundreds, maybe even thousands, of ads every day,[2] though not nearly as many as the 10,000 frequently cited with little empirical evidence.[3]

I often despair at how much our lives are manipulated by elites—governmental, economic, religious, policing—add your own troubling categories.. Not too long ago, I became especially aware of how social institutions like on-line media (news media, social media, retail media, and on and on) tell us what we should care about[4]—and how we way too often submit to their enticements.[5]

Advertising of a material product, or a political candidate or cause, is the most obvious, and perhaps longest lived, example, but nowadays it’s often a subset of some larger “concern” to which we’re being alerted. I think the problem extends to the entire digital world, especially in this age of nearly constant attention to our digital devices (which seems to cut across ALL age groups—that’s right, us old codgers, too).

Some examples:

• Picking up on contemporary standards for what is important in our world (commonly revolving around money, power, controversy, and sexual attractiveness), news headlines highlight people whom media and their subjects want us to care about, like billionaires (as in the catastrophe of the deep-sea vessel visiting the Titanic, or the latest shenanigans of Elon Musk, Mark Zuckerberg, or Jeff Bezos), or feuding politicians (especially when they’re in the same party), or people characterized as celebrities (as in how much money they just paid or received for a house, or whom they’re sleeping with). More everyday casualties of any sort don’t generate sufficient readership.[6]
• Headlines commonly use unspecified but titillating references about supposedly important information, so that digital lemmings that we are, we click and read what is often bland content. But by the time we realize that, we’ve witnessed multiple ads embedded with the “news” item—and often, we anyway click on links embedded in the “news” story.
• Headlines lure us with heart-stopping adjectives like “bombshell,” “stunning,” “shocking,” “devastating,” “jaw-dropping,”
• We take brand names so for granted that when a crossword puzzle uses them for entries, we feel proud if we know the relevant name—or frustrated with ourselves if we don’t. [7]

Do we ever question the media’s construct of imaginary agglomerations of people with supposedly unified positions? These instant individual or group self-styled authorities give us the scoop on endless significant or trivial features of our culture. Here are some generic templates used by so many digital media sources:

• Sports report vital information like “Major League Baseball [or your own favorite professional or collegiate sport] world [or “Twitter” or just “the internet”] expresses [some elaborate emotion, preferably akin to outrage] over [anything at all]”
• Or: [Athlete in some sport] [accomplishes something unspecified] never before seen[8] [or at least not seen in donkey’s years]
• “[Very young person] gets rich [with unspecified innovation] ”
• “The [some one- or two-digit number] best [Netflix films this month, EVs, hidden travel sites, etc., etc.]”
• “I’m an expert in [anything the news service has dreamed up], and I have this startling news for you”
• “The nation [gasps/reels/reacts] as [one famous person or social group or government institution attacks another]”
• “New poll shows [dramatic but unspecified truth about some topic of purportedly crucial importance]”
• “Genius trick[s] to [accomplish something you’ve unwittingly been doing all wrong up to now]”
• “Shoppers agree on the superiority of [some popular consumer item], and it’s on sale right now at [usually Amazon] for [this amazingly low price that you can’t pass up]”
• “[You need to] [do this thing you didn’t know about] right away”
• “Most iconic [whatever]”
• [Review after review (including great bargains, as appropriate) of anything imaginable, material or otherwise]

I have the impression that sources about which we might care have taken up many of these techniques to draw us in[9]—and, not incidentally, to motivate us to make donations. Here are some examples from August 9 of this year (I will not waste your time or mine with examples from the Wall Street Journal[10]):

• NPR: “A boy on the autism spectrum struggled with a haircut. His barber saved the day.”
• CNBC: “At 101 years old, I’m the ‘world’s oldest practicing doctor’: My No. 1 tip for keeping your brain sharp”[11]
• The Guardian: “What I learned from hiking with a partner who strode ahead—and wouldn’t slow down”
• BBC “Can eating dessert for breakfast actually help you lose weight? A scientist explains.”[12]
• National Geographic: “Animals trapped in war zones find a second chance here.”[13]
• Smithsonian: “Can Peacock Vasectomies Save This Florida Town?”[14]

As I was finishing this commentary, I encountered this on-line headline: “World reacts to Megan Rapinoe’s clear opinion on America.” I end with it because of how its reach tries to smush together very different (though not to the headline writer) concerns:

 Context: Rapinoe has been a star member of the US women’s soccer team that recently was knocked out of this year’s women’s World Cup championship (after having won it the two previous years, which took place, before the pandemic). A lot of people seemed to feel patriotism was wrapped up with either rooting for the Americans or condemning them, and apparently the outspoken Rapinoe has become the focal point for whatever is viewed as wrong with the team.[15]

1. Rapinoe has made some critical comments about the US (no free speech in sports, of course), and has been taken to be unpatriotic (I can only hope she is).[16]
2. The concern in the headline, however, is not stated to be about soccer but about the entire United States.
3. Given other sports headline phraseology, we might have expected this statement to start with something like “US soccer world.” But no—suddenly the entire globe (try to picture that) is gripped by this drama and has deep concerns about this very narrow topic, symbolized by a single soccer player, in one very specific country.
4. Of course, we won’t know what Rapinoe’s “clear opinion” is unless we click on the headline. I leave it to curious readers to suss out exactly what the expression means.

A final note: You may have observed that I have not ventured into the quicksand of internet use for political malfeasance, though of course politics and any economic system intertwine to the point of being indistinguishable.

[1] I have a vague memory that Henry James used the novelty of professional advertising as one key character’s job.

[2] I gather that for starters, an awful lot of people, and especially young people, subscribe to multiple social media, which I also gather are riddled with ads.

[3] One thoughtful article on the history of such estimates begins with “Hundreds of articles and blogs will tell you that we see up to 10,000 ads a day. The problem? No one – from Harvard professors to Market Research Council hall-of-famers – believes it’s true.” (https://www.thedrum.com/news/2023/05/03/how-many-ads-do-we-really-see-day-spoiler-it-s-not-10000)

[4] You might wish to add that they also try to tell us what and how to think, but I see that as a side issue (albeit troubling) that doesn’t matter so long as you buy advertised goods and services.

[5] My only social medium is Facebook, which I view infrequently and almost entirely for leftish political posts (though these can get pretty repetitive). If you’re on one of the social media, think about how often you click on ads.

[6] Except, it seems, for the latest wartime deaths and mutilations, many or few, in Ukraine (but typically not Russia, much less other countries where fighting is happening).

[7] Further re brands: Consider how we love to urge specific brands or businesses on our friends. And how we offer this free advertising without expecting to be paid by the companies we’re touting.

[8] I like to imagine that the unique event (they are almost daily) is scatological.

[9] Even the leftish Huffpost[9] has a daily section called “Huffpost personal” that, judging by its headlines, are full of extravagantly boring personal tales imagined to be valuable for our own lives.

How many readers today know that Ariana Huffington was once a right-winger married to a California Republican congressperson? Not, of course, that past behavior should ever be predictive of future results.

[10] Of course, nothing and no one is objective in the sense we normally mean by that term, but the Journal can almost always be counted on to push any news in a conservative if not ultra-right direction. I have some limited trust in, but still check with caution, headlines (and sometimes parts of corresponding articles) in the NY Times and the Washington Post (though I never forget that Jeff Bezos owns the Post), but I use FAIR (Fair and Accuracy in Reporting—fair.org) to keep up with current examples of how journals like these are skewing news, especially in relation to biases about social justice and economic issues. I have some fondness for, and relative trust in, articles in, The Atlantic, The New Yorker and The Nation.

[11] If it’s so goddamned important, why isn’t the answer in the headline????

[12] Judging by the second line, the answer to the question is “yes.” (I refuse to click and find out.) If so why pose it as a question? And notice that we are to assume, here and elsewhere, that ANY “scientist” is an unimpeachable source.

[13] Is “here” so complicated it can’t be specified in a word or short phrase?

[14] So hard not to click and see the details on this especially provocative locution…but I managed…so far.

[15] Aside from losing that key match, during the tournament many of the American players refused to pay homage to the “Star-Spangled Banner.” Reading a headline about this supposedly unpatriotic protest of American social injustice, which I could wish all athletes would repeat, is what made me pay attention to the tournament at all.

[16] I have always felt dismay at how patriotism (coined in English in the 17^th century) remains so highly valued, apparently in all countries. I always liked the relatively conservative Samuel Johnson’s “Patriotism is the last refuge of a scoundrel” until I recently learned that, according to Boswell, who recorded the quote, “he did not mean a real and generous love of our country, but that pretended patriotism which so many, in all ages and countries, have made a cloak for self-interest.” (I took this quote from https://interestingliterature.com/2021/05/patriotism-is-the-last-refuge-of-the-scoundrel-meaning-origins/. You can find the larger context by searching for a unique part of the quote in Gutenberg.org’s version of Boswell’s voluminous Life of Johnson at https://www.gutenberg.org/cache/epub/1564/pg1564-images.html.) Boswell’s description, of course, continues to apply to many politicians.