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[Outdated]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.

[previous video was blocked by user, I'll try again]

This is so obviously ridiculous but has 130,000 views:

 

[Grondhammar]

Just from the Photoshopping (lack of) quality in the thumbnail, I'd doubt anything in that video... even if I were the type to miss "million of".

 

[Outdated]

Just from the Photoshopping (lack of) quality in the thumbnail, I'd doubt anything in that video... even if I were the type to miss "million of".

I don't understand why they think anyone would send donkeys in to the desert, it just doesn't make sense. We have plenty of other feral animals in our desert regions, goats, camels, pigs and cats, but that climate just isn't suitable for donkeys. We actually export camels to Saudi Arabia.

In the south east of the country where the climate is temperate we have feral horses and deer, and quite likely a few donkeys as well. They're pest animals that cost us millions to control as we attempt to eradicate them.

 

[TBRS1]

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.

[previous video was blocked by user, I'll try again]

This is so obviously ridiculous but has 130,000 views:

I wouldn't fall for it.

Australians have more cause to hate imported species than any other nation on earth.

 

[SusanLR]

And I thought you were posting something about fishing. Really.

This is a click bait lure.

 

[Outdated]

Australians have more cause to hate imported species than any other nation on earth.

I think we're about to increase our biosecurity restrictions too. Typical for us though, after we've already got problems instead of preemptively. For decades Tasmania had a thriving potato industry, McDonalds used Tasmanian potatoes all over the world for it's fries because Tasmania grew the biggest potatoes in the world.

Now Potato Mop Top Virus has infected all potato crops across the entire state. A disease we were completely free of until just last year. This is why when you come to Australia you are not allowed to bring any food of any kind, when you come through customs they search your bags and any food or anything made of plant materials will be confiscated and incinerated. The trouble is that private planes aren't as stringently monitored as regular passenger flights and rich nobs think laws are only for the proletariat.

We're also one of the last places in the world that doesn't have Rabies, Johnny Dep found out how seriously we take that disease when he tried to smuggle his dogs in to the country on his private jet. Since then he's been persona non grata in Australia and it took him 3 months to get his dogs back out of quarantine.

 

[Judge]

One of the dynamics of YouTube that drives me bonkers is when they say something incredulous as a tagline with an outrageous (and fake) graphic to match, but then after going through a lengthy presentation that whatever was claimed in a tagline (the hook) was never explained. Likely untrue anyways.