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Yes. I'd be happy to change the title to make it less baity, but couldn't think of a dignified way to do so. The article is much more interesting than just that detail, although it goes to tragic places.
Is this post really HN material?
I started playing the audio versions in the car during family vacations and now they are tradition whenever we take a road trip.
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Arguably, this is not clickbait. Many define 'clickbait' as a lead that is characteristically deceptive, misleading, or exaggerated. I'd argue this is simply a teaser, as the article certainly delivers on its promise of a 'secret'. If anything, 'secret' is understated.
If this doesn't read as clear, absolute, 100%, not-at-all-up-for-debate clickbait as explained by AdmiralAsshat then the media has done a great job of manipulating your expectations. The title intentionally replaces the primary subject of the article (baby found in freezer) with withholding and vague language ("her secret") in order to force readers to click through to learn what the primary subject is. They are bait…
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You’re missing the bait part of clickbait. Baiting a fish is tricking them into thinking they’ll get a meal, when they won’t. Clickbait is for things like “You won’t believe the shocking thing Harrison Ford did this morning!!” —and it turns out he buttered his toast. All too common, when media companies actually do not have a story, or the funds to go deep on a story, so instead mislead the reader into thinking a sto…
> You’re missing the bait part of clickbait. It's not missing at all . The bait is the phrase "her secret in the freezer". The article may be high quality but the title is clickbait, plain and simple. Do you believe the author chose that title themselves? Or was it the editors who have marketing-set quotas to reach? Why do you think the top voted comment in this thread is the explanation of what "her secret in the fr…
I'll borrow Wikipedia's definition: "Clickbait is a form of false advertisement which uses hyperlink text or a thumbnail link that is designed to attract attention and entice users to follow that link and read, view, or listen to the linked piece of online content, with a defining characteristic of being deceptive, typically sensationalized or misleading."
What I'm focusing on is what wikipedia calls the 'defining characteristic', which is what separates it from headlines intended to build suspense. In other words, a title is not clickbait if it tries to entice you with tantalizingly withheld information, it is clickbait if it lures you into an article that does not provide the information thusly withheld, or it turns out the information was inaccurately implied by the title. In the same way, a piece of food that entices a fish is only bait if it will not provide a meal but instead put the fish in a situation they did not intend on being in (getting caught).
If you extend clickbait to situations like this article, there isn't really a word left for the ones that are actively misleading. For example there's a newspaper that keeps getting me to click on its stuff in Google News because it tells me an asteroid almost blew up Earth, when in fact the asteroid had an infintesimal chance of doing so. That is clickbait. Having worked in content recommendations quite a bit, I can say it's quite a painful situation.
What would make the above article title clickbait would have been if it turned out he found spoiled milk in the freezer, or some other pedestrian product. Which happens quite a bit in Internet syndicated media.
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> You’re missing the bait part of clickbait. It's not missing at all . The bait is the phrase "her secret in the freezer". The article may be high quality but the title is clickbait, plain and simple. Do you believe the author chose that title themselves? Or was it the editors who have marketing-set quotas to reach? Why do you think the top voted comment in this thread is the explanation of what "her secret in the fr…
This is probably a pointless argument, because I will heartily agree this is all about semantics that are not locked into the language :). But I believe a quite acceptable distinction between 'clickbait' and a 'lead-in' or what-have-you is that the article A) does tell you what the secret is that was promised by the headline, and B) the secret is to the point of the article and not overly sensationalized by the title…
Does that mean that the fisherman who puts bait on a hook, catches a fish, but then provides the fish with a full meal and lets it free is not baiting the fish?
Anyway, I appreciate your explanation, and it definitely made me think. I would have to agree that feature articles like this one making their titles more enticing is not clickbait, it's just good creative writing.
But if this was a news article I would remain as stubborn in my original opinion!
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This is probably a pointless argument, because I will heartily agree this is all about semantics that are not locked into the language :). But I believe a quite acceptable distinction between 'clickbait' and a 'lead-in' or what-have-you is that the article A) does tell you what the secret is that was promised by the headline, and B) the secret is to the point of the article and not overly sensationalized by the title…
OK, if I'm understanding you correctly, you define clickbait as articles that don't deliver the legitimate content promised in the headline, regardless of whether the headline is sensationalized or not. Does that mean that the fisherman who puts bait on a hook, catches a fish, but then provides the fish with a full meal and lets it free is not baiting the fish? Anyway, I appreciate your explanation, and it definitely…
On feature vs news titles I’m totally with you and your point is very much taken. Yes it is a problem from that perspective when only the title is syndicated without the context of what type of article it is. For example the Washington Post runs a column that is a satirical take on the news, written with a straight face. Google News syndicates it as news with no differentiation, and I kept having surreal “wuh??” moments until I started recognizing the author. I guess we need more metadata besides title and source. Thanks for a good discussion.