Does Clickbait Work?

[Captain Caveman]

I think it does.

 

[Judge]

Absolutely. So much so that it's completely out of control on YouTube.

If this was not the case, there would not be such a flood of deception, false advertising and military/political disinformation that abounds there. Perhaps worst of all, to see such practices regarding even the most trivial of subjects, all in the pursuit of that crucial mouse-click.

If it wasn't working for content providers, I doubt it would be so prevalent as it has become.

 

[Grondhammar]

I think the title of this thread should be, "Someone used clickbait, then THIS happened!"

If I see it, no matter who uses it or the content, I skip it. There's a linguist I follow who has some very good content but who uses it for some of his videos. I'll never know what he has to say in those. Sad.

 

[Dagan]

It does, but in most cases, it also is exactly said user's undoing. I'd have to talk about the film industry to prove this, and I don't know that I should go off on that tangent just yet.

 

[TBRS1]

The title of this thread is clickbait.

Has anybody responded?

 

[Outdated]

There's a lot of content out there that's so deliberately and obviously fake, but if the title catches people's attention many will click on it. And about half of them will believe every word of it true.

Here's a classic that I'd never click on but 4 million others already have.