About

"Clickbait" is an Internet slang term for online media or news content with sensationalist headlines that are produced by websites for the sole purpose of accumulating page views to generate advertising revenue.^[2] It is typically used as a pejorative for viral media and stories that spread through social networking sites despite their perceived lack of depth, quality, authenticity or accuracy.

Origin

The earliest known use of the term was in a blog post by corporate systems adviser Jay Geiger^[4] on December 1st, 2006. In the post, he defined clickbait as:

"Any content or feature within a website that “baits” a viewer to click. “Anything interesting enough to catch a person’s attention”. More often than not, click bait uses “highly alternative text/phrasing”, ”controversial slogans/ideas” or “culturally inspirational descriptions/events”. Click bait is similar to link bait but is generally seen as less effective, more shortsighted and more shortlived."

Precursor

"Linkbait" is a term referring to web content produced to encourage links from other websites for search engine optimization (SEO) purposes. In January 2006, Google employee Matt Cutts^[3] published a blog post outlining various linkbait techniques.

Spread

On October 30th, 2012, Urban Dictionary^[6] user John Prior submitted an entry for "click bait," defining it as web content designed to encourage clicks for advertising revenue. On October 15th, 2013, CollegeHumor^[1] published a compilation of book covers photoshopped with clickbait titles (shown below).

In August 2014, "clickbait" was added to the Oxford English Dictionary.^[11] On October 3rd, the Epic News YouTube channel uploaded a video titled "This Video Will Change Your Life," which cited several examples of clickbait in online media and mocked sites like UpWorthy for using cheap tricks to generate pageviews (shown below). In the first three months, the video gained over 900,000 views and 420 comments.

On September 22nd, Redditor bigsnakejake submitted a screenshot of a Yahoo News article as an example of clickbait to the /r/mildlyinfuriating^[8] subreddit (shown below, left). In two months, the post garnered upwards of 3,200 votes (95% upvoted) and 60 comments. On November 4th, Redditor HistoryOfGamerHatred submitted an "ask me anything" (AMA) post about a Chrome extension that would "obliterate the profitability of clickbait" to the /r/KotakuInAction^[5] subreddit. On November 17th, Redditor MiG-15^[9] submitted a link to a clickbait headline generator^[13] to the /r/InternetIsBeautiful^[12] subreddit. On December 8th, Redditor StopSquashandRoll submitted a screenshot titled "This is probably some of the best clickbait I've seen", featuring an article titled "Celebs You Didn't Know Are Black" (shown below, right). In the first two weeks, the post received more than 900 votes (89% upvoted) on the /r/funny^[7] subreddit.

Notable Examples

Several major online news sites and aggregation sites have been criticized for employing clickbait tactics, including Upworthy, The Huffington Post, Gawker and BuzzFeed^[10], among many others.

Clickhole

ClickHole is a parody website created by the satirical news site The Onion to mock clickbait content featured on blogs like UpWorthy and BuzzFeed.

Upworthy Headlines

Upworthy Headlines are parody titles that mock those used for content highlighted on the viral media site Upworthy,^[1] which are often criticized for using the clickbait techniques to grab the viewer's attention and increase pageviews.

Search Interest

External References