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Q&A The art of clickbait captions

We all have seen at least one of these clickbaits (or some variation thereof): "single mom discovers the meaning of life with a simple trick" or "billionaires don't want you to know this...

4 answers  ·  posted 5y ago by _X_‭  ·  last activity 5y ago by System‭

#4: Attribution notice removed by user avatar System‭ · 2019-12-18T21:34:24Z (almost 5 years ago)
Source: https://writers.stackexchange.com/q/45317
License name: CC BY-SA 3.0
License URL: https://creativecommons.org/licenses/by-sa/3.0/
#3: Attribution notice added by user avatar System‭ · 2019-12-08T11:56:53Z (almost 5 years ago)
Source: https://writers.stackexchange.com/q/45317
License name: CC BY-SA 3.0
License URL: https://creativecommons.org/licenses/by-sa/3.0/
#2: Initial revision by (deleted user) · 2019-12-08T11:56:53Z (almost 5 years ago)
We all have seen at least one of these clickbaits (or some variation thereof):

> "single mom discovers the meaning of life with a simple trick"

or

> "billionaires don't want you to know this secret"

or

> "the 10 things that only real survivors do"

or

> "you could be sitting on a fortune"

At face value they just seem cheap psychological tricks. They place the reader in the position to wish to belong to a certain group, and they suggest that membership can be attained with the only effort of clicking somewhere.

As a test I wrote:

> If you want to be really famous you only have to click here.

but it does not quite stand the comparison.

Am I being too strict in judging my own clickbait, or is there a deeper art to crafting it?

#1: Imported from external source by user avatar System‭ · 2019-05-21T22:44:03Z (over 5 years ago)
Original score: 48