CLICK-BAIT COULD BE KILLING YOU! Click here to find out how…

Hello my fellow rage-monkeys,

Today we’re going to talk about click-bait. Don’t know what click-bait is? Click-bait is when writers and marketers use desperate and underhand methods to get you to view their content (like this title does – forgive me). Don’t get me wrong, click-bait is not always bad. There’s harmless heart-string plucking click-bait from sites like Upworthy.com. You know, like, when you see an ad or video in your Facebook feed titled, ‘This homeless alcoholic found a kitten in a tiara, what happens next will ASTOUND YOU.’ Meh, what harm does it do? Other than lie to you, of course, because you might chuckle or crease up and “Awwww” at the video but I doubt you’ll rock back on your chair and clutch your head, screaming, “HOLY SHIT! THAT WAS ASTOUNDING!” But ultimately, your day and emotional well-being will remain unchanged.

AWW HELL NO

Then there’s another kind of click-bait. The rage-inducing kind. This is the kind I hate, because it makes me fucking angry… See, I’m livid right now. This kind of click-bait is intended to upset you, to tell you that the world is a horrible, hate-filled place and boy should you lose your shit about it right. now. I’m talking about articles about say, some Z-list celebrity calling Robin Williams “selfish” for committing suicide. It provokes anger that someone could be so judgemental without having a single-fucking-iota of insight in to Robin’s personal struggles and at the same time contributing to the already overflowing sea of ignorance surrounding mental health issues, especially in men. Ya see kids, for some whey-protein-brained thunder-cunts, it’s still considered unmanly to be depressed, to feel incapable of carrying on, ‘Men should be strong and selfless alphas… Like War Machine.’

Do you see what I did there; I went off on a rage-induced rant, because click-bait made me angry about something that really, I shouldn’t even have known about. I did the same thing when I found out Westborough Baptist Church plans to picket Robin’s funeral because he sometimes played gay/gay-friendly characters. That rant went like this: SERIOUSLY! JUST FUCK OFF YOU UNGODLY SCUM-SUCKING CAVE-DWELLING INBRED MEDIA-WHORE FUCKTARDS!

Then I thought, whose day was ruined here? Whose emotional well-being was disrupted? Yep, MINE. And maybe yours too if you had a similar (but probably less profane) reaction to these stories. And why? Because some media fucknuts decided to make it “news”. Some asshole saying something assholey does not need to be news, but it sure does sell more than dweeby so-called “proper news.” If a website can create a title that upsets and angers us it makes us more likely to click through to the article and, by default, increase their site traffic. This means they can report back to their evil advertisement overlords that they get ‘X number of unique visitors each month’ and ‘Y numbers of clicks per minute’.  So they’re peddling hate for monetary gain, wouldn't that make them kind of like Satan's little helpers? Yes kids, yes it would.

So I guess what I’m trying to say is this: Maybe the next time you see a headline that makes you jerk forward with your best AWW-HELL-NO face on, ask yourself, ‘Is this really something I need to see? And if you do, ‘Does the injustice justify the rage?’ For articles about terrorism, war, miscarriages of justice, media and political corruption, etc then the answers should probably be ‘Yes Pleb, of course, you derp!’ But for articles about barely-even-famous-anymore folks saying douchey things, maybe they should be No. The less we read this tripe, the less they’ll produce because it will no longer be financial viable. So instead of clicking, why not carry on living your awesome life? After all, the Twitterati will respond to Twitter douchery with counter-vitriol and politicians and the police can deal with douche groups in their local community – and all that can be achieved without assholes being given a global stage for their assholery and upsetting our otherwise beautiful days.