PC Gaming

Arbitrary?

The first contains no “draw”. It would be completely different if it said “celebrity” instead of man or “million dollar organization”. Naming either in the title would do nothing to help, as people would likely not know who or what they were. Here: “Bob Bobtallion’s home burglarized by the Boblicious Crime Organization” did that actually add any info that won’t need to be heavily explained in the article? Not unless you know either of those entities, and chances are you won’t. Not to mention, crime organizations are normally nameless and don’t advertise themselves.

The second can be improved and made less clickbaity: “Hilton hotel burned in suspected arson.” The changeout of “Hilton” to “popular” is what makes it clickbait. It’s explicitly removing a piece of information, and requiring you to read the article to get that information.

The third is the worst offender. Why aren’t we naming the senator? Why aren’t we giving some reference to what assault is being talked about? There are two pieces of information being intentionally left out. And I might agree that the assault can’t be easily condensed into headline lingo, but the senator can definitely be named.

The point is, a clickbait headline is something intentionally leaving you guessing at what is going on when it could easily contain the information. You may have a rough idea, but in order to get the full picture you need to click into the article.

Edit: And a real world example, this article. No one, and I truly mean no one, wants to click into the article. The writer knows this, but wants the ad revenue. So what do they do? Sensationalize the headline and refuse to name the game. Anyone who wants to get the name of this “omg amazeballs free for now game” needs to click into the article.