This post was inspired by two things I saw recently: The connection between these two items is not obvious, but it is interesting. The lemon problem WeFunder, for the uninitiated, is a crowdfunding platform for (primarily) technology companies. It allows community-oriented startups to sell a small % of ownership to their users and supporters.
Sort of using it as a catch all umbrella for “wording a title in such a way to try and get people scrolling by to rubberneck” and go “oh, unfair? That sounds controversial”.
It’s an absolutely good move to word it in such a way that piques curiosity, and yes I’m sure there’s a line in there somewhere between being clickbaity with no real substance, and using intriguing wording in a title, I’m just so critical of wording things that way that I’d make an abysmal journalist.
And this article absolutely has a lot of substance, I wouldn’t say the whole thing is clickbait by any means, just that the word is used in a similar fashion in the title, sort of a hook that relies on an emotional knee jerk of wanting to see how unfair it really is or not.
Yeah, that’s called a “hook,” not “click bait.” A hook is meant to, like the name suggests, hook you in. Click bait is something of low value designed just to make you click on it so you look at at ads it’s trying to feed you.
It’s the difference between “childish” and “childlike.” One is good, the other is not.
It’s just an unfortunate aspect of the word clickbait. A hook baits you to click, definitively, and so the true meaning of clickbait will be diluted and used as a shorthand for a range of types of titles. You’re right, though, clickbait has a seriously negative connotation, and I was kind of a dick in my comment for going straight to that instead of saying hook.
I see them as one in the same. You put bait on a hook in fishing, both to lure in your catch. It’s just a new term for the internet age.