Clickbait exists to get clicks.
But clickbait is built by people who know what they are doing. Because that knowledge was pioneered by companies trying to get ahead in the modern economy. And they learned to do it because experts shared their knowledge with them. And those experts got that knowledge because they engineered a way to manipulate the consumer.
Now I can open several different headline generators to create the perfect headline.
When it started, it was about getting people to notice what we have written. Now, AI-generated content designed only for clicks, with each click bringing revenue. None of it by a person saying, as Seth Godin likes to say “Here, I made this.” They literally just want you for your money.
Is this good?
That’s a higher order question that I don’t seek to answer here. But it is important to name the reality.
- People hate the idea of clickbait.
- It is an effective strategy.
- We tend to tolerate its existence and prove its utility.
- Changing things takes effort.
- Hating clickbait is easier than fixing it.
We were primed for the AI revolution.
Seth Godin asks “Did we give up before AI arrived?” Speaking to creative professionals, he points out that AI can do as a good a job at making art as many mediocre freelancers.
“But why were there mediocre freelancers?” he asks.
Godin exposes the question, not as a dig on the people trying to make a go of things in the modern economy, but why so many people produce mediocre work for people who want mediocre work? Why is this the system?
Today’s artificial intelligence systems are doing a profound job at producing hyper-realistic art. Which is a challenge to artists who spent the last few decades developing a hyper-realistic style. Many developing patterns to perfect it and teaching it to other artists.
One such technique involves dividing the canvas into boxes and doing the same to a photograph: creating a stroke-by-stroke copy of the photo. It can produce a profound and striking product. One that many other artists believe strains the credibility of art.
Netflix uses its algorithm to determine what it thinks we want to watch and they get a scriptwriter to come up with a screenplay to match it. Then they cast the kind of actors they think we’d want to see in those roles.
Is any of this good?
Not the right question. At least not unless you make a commitment.
Good is value judgement. One worth defending.
If you don’t like clickbaity headlines, make a point not to click. But go another step further and help your friends avoid it. And then take another step even further and get off social media. Algorithmically-aligned happiness is a bit of a misnomer anyway.
Perhaps the question of our time is this: Why must we consume so much cheap, mediocre content?
We don’t have to. And we can stop choosing to.
And maybe, we offer our own stuff to each other. I’ll read your short story about a talking dog and love it a lot more than anything on Instagram.
And if you’re reading this, know how much I appreciate that you chose to share your attention with me. I hope I’ve earned it.
A Coda:
By the way, I chose not to use a headline analyzer on this post. I simply came up with a headline myself. And yet, I did weigh the question of how click-enducing it is.
The challenge with clickbait, SEO, AI, and all modern development is precisely that something normal (attraction, creative, adaptive) becomes the means of exploitation and commerce, rather than creativity and ingenuity. And when we start playing that game, we should never be surprised when we’ve raced to the bottom.