Clickbait: The junk food of the internet
Clickbait. We all hate it. We all fall for it. And, occasionally, some of us write it (don’t look at me like that, I’m a reformed character).
Let’s get one thing out of the way. Clickbait headlines are everywhere because they work.
They’re like crisps, you know they’re bad for you, but suddenly half the bag is gone and you don’t even remember opening it.
The headline trap: Irresistible nonsense
Here’s a classic: “Our frugal family gave up these simple things to save £10k.”
You click. You expect insider wisdom.
Maybe they stopped buying avocados, maybe they built their own washing machine from driftwood, maybe they sold a kidney on the dark web.
What do you get? “We switched to supermarket own-brand cereal.”
Groundbreaking. Nobel-worthy. How will I ever recover from this earth-shattering financial revelation?
Or the fearmongering variety: “Drivers warned of new £138 driveway charge from this October.”
Ominous. You picture men in hi-vis jackets waiting to fine you for looking at your own driveway.
You click. Turns out it’s a misinterpreted council proposal in one postcode. Somewhere in Wales. Maybe.
And my personal favourite: “Car salesperson says avoid making simple dealership mistake.”
Which one? Buying the extended warranty? Forgetting your shoes? Speaking to a car salesperson in the first place?
You’ll never know, because the article gives you exactly zero useful information, unless you count the 17 ads you had to dodge as wisdom.
Why websites do it: The rewards
Now, let’s be fair for a second. Clickbait isn’t pure evil. For websites, it’s a traffic magnet.
More clicks mean more ads served, which means more pennies trickling in from Google.
Think of it as the internet’s version of shaking down tourists for spare change.
There’s also the dopamine factor. A spicy headline makes us curious. We want to know what the “simple mistake” is.
It’s like being told, “Don’t think about elephants.” Congratulations, you’re now thinking about elephants and clicking on links.
And if you’re a publisher? You can tell your advertisers, “Look, 200,000 people visited our site yesterday!”
You don’t mention that 199,999 of them left angrier than when they arrived. Details.
Why it’s terrible: The risks
But here’s the problem. Clickbait is a short-term sugar rush. It gets people in the door, but it doesn’t keep them there.
If anything, it makes them run screaming out the back.
Nobody trusts a site that constantly overpromises and underdelivers. It’s like that one friend who always says, “You have to come to this party, it’ll be amazing.”
You go, and it’s five people in a kitchen eating beige hummus.
Fool me once, shame on you. Fool me twice, and I’m uninstalling my browser.
Clickbait also backfires spectacularly on social media. People click, realise it’s rubbish, and then comment angrily. “This article told me nothing!”
Which is ironic, because the headline literally told you everything the article had to offer.
The reader’s perspective: What’s the point?
The core issue is simple. The content never lives up to the headline. You came for secrets, revelations, insider tips. You stayed for… ads about pet insurance.
Clickbait makes us all feel a little bit cheated.
Like, yes, technically you gave me a story, but did you give me the story? The one you promised? No.
And now I have to explain to my family why I was ten minutes late to dinner because I was reading about some bloke who once saved £10 by buying yellow-stickered crumpets.
Can clickbait be saved?
Here’s the twist. I don’t think clickbait is doomed. The problem isn’t the attention-grabbing headline, it’s the letdown of the article.
Imagine if the content actually matched the hype?
- “Our frugal family gave up these simple things to save £10k” and it really did include selling a speedboat, cancelling Amazon Prime, and building their own solar panels from tin foil. I’d read that. Twice.
- “Drivers warned of new £138 driveway charge” but then it explained the policy clearly, with real examples, and maybe a chart. Useful. Shareable.
- “Car salesperson says avoid simple dealership mistake” and it actually told me the mistake. Revolutionary!
The hook isn’t the enemy. The disappointment is.
The moral of the story (yes, there is one)
Clickbait is junk food for the brain. Tasty in the moment but leave it unchecked and you’ll regret it.
It rewards publishers quickly but punishes them in the long run by making readers cynical.
And us? We keep clicking because we’re curious creatures.
Curiosity built the internet. Curiosity also made me click on an article titled “You won’t believe what happens when you microwave grapes” and now I’m banned from using the office kitchen.
So maybe the solution isn’t to banish clickbait. Maybe it’s to feed our curiosity honestly.
Give us headlines that hook, but make sure the content delivers. Otherwise, we’ll all be left wondering why we keep clicking on promises that never pay off.
And finally… the clickbait headline for this very blog post
“Writer exposes the shocking truth about clickbait and what happens next will blow your mind.”
What happens next? You close the tab, maybe chuckle to yourself, and then go back to Googling banana bread recipes.
Disappointing? Yes. Accurate? Also yes.
Contact me at Coastal Content for content that delivers on the headline.
