Underneath my yellow skin

Tag Archives: clickbait

The enshittification of the internet, part three

Let’s talk more about the good and the bad of the internet. I spend most of my time online, so obviously, I’m a big fan. But I’ve noticed how the quality of the writing has gone down the toilet. I’m not talking about the AI (though that does, indeed, suck. I’m not here to talk about it, though), which doesn’t help.

(Deep sigh. So many big thoughts about AI that I do not want to share right now.)

Side note: Yes, again. Oh, here’s yesterday’s post in which I railed about all the shitty clickbait that is just getting shittier. And how websites are actively making themselves worse in order to appease their shareholders at the expense of their customers.

When I actually give in and check out one of those, “So-and-so DESTROYED the other so-and-so”, I always hate myself after. I have to be strict with myself because it’s so bad. Even on news sites, there is a tendency to run towards hyperbolic. As I mentioned in yesterday’s post, I immediately knock off fifty percent of the energy whenever I read a piece. So if something is disastrous, then it’s mildly bad.

I also mentioned that I already have an issue with showing my emotions–feeling them, too. Which is a sign of my neurodivergence. I thought I was just wrong, weird, or broken, but it’s just how I’m made. It’s also my parents making it exceedingly clear that emotions were for them and not fro me. Any time I showed the least bit of negative emotions, I was  reprimanded, chided, and criticized. Sometimes, even shouted at.

I got exceptionally good at swallowing my rage, er, emotions. And in not showing pain. In fact, when I started Taiji, that’s something I had to address. My teacher was teaching ushow to do joint lock techniques, called chin na techniques. Basically, you jab or press pressure points to cause the other person immense pain that disappears the second you let up.

Before I get to thaat, there’s another kind of content creation that just drives me up the wall. I want to mention it because I keep meaning to talk about it, then promptly forgetting. Since I just saw something that reminded me of it (and set me off), I decided to do it now. This is the “I can’t believe _______ (people of a certain country) do _______ (something completely normal)!” and it’s cousin, “I finally understand why ______ (people of a certain country) do this weird thing! (Which is not in the least weird.)”

Me: “Oh, you can’t understand WHY PEOPLE IN A DIFFERENT COUNTRY MIGHT DO THINGS DIFFERENTLY THAN YOU DO?!”

It’s so fucking annoying. I don’t know about the actual content because I don’t click on those vids (though I have seen one or two of them). “American English is different than British English!” Well, duh. The one that really irks me is when British people make fun of/are incredulous about how we do dates in America. By that, I mean the way we write the date, not how we go about dating.


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You won’t believe what this post is about!

I am a big fan of the internet. BIG fan. However, one thing that irritates the fuck out of me is how hyperbolic ledes/titles can be. I cannot stand anything that has a title that starts, “You won’t believe what____”, “So-and-so CRUSHED/DESTROYED (his/her opponent!)”, or anything else of this ilk.

Another format I dislike is, “Did such and such a thing mean such and such?” I once read that if a headline asked a question, the answer was always no. Which I have found to be true 99% of the time.

Yet another thing that grinds my gear is titles that are negs in disguise. “Kpop hater listens to (Kpop group) for the first time! Will it change his mind?” That is such a bad premise, but it’s so clickbaity because most people want that redemption arc, even if it’s manufactured and/or trite. In the gaming world, the equivalent is, “I gave ______ (a game)” thirty minutes to make me interested.”

I will not click on any video that has any of those in the titles. Not only are they so negative, but they are overtly manipulative. If you’re going to manipulate me, it has to be much more covert than that. I resent being able to see the manipulation, and it’s so clumsy, too. It outrages me that these content creators think I’m that naive/ignorant/swayable.

It’s reached the point where if I see any title that starts with “Such and such hater tries–“, I just shut it down. Or tell YouTube not to recommend that channel. Also, it’s made me much more cynical in general. All the hyperbole, I mean. “You won’t believe–” Oh, I bet I will.

And all the ‘crushed’, ‘destroyed’, ‘humiliated’ talk is outright bullshit. I watched several of those (usually a liberal ‘destroying’ a conservative), and it’s never the humiliation that the channel is trumpeting it to be. At best, it’s a mild point scored for the liberal. At worst, it’s the liberal being shown in a bad light.

Look.

I know that it’s hard to get eyeballs on yyour channel no matter what the niche. There are a zillion channels, and you have to find a way to stand out. But this is so not my jam. I am turned off by negging and the exaggeration.

I don’t even know if it works. I mean, it must, right? Or why would people keep doing it? (Don’t answer that. I know there are other reasons why people might keep doing it.)

This kind of senseless sensationalism has infiltrated so-called serious journalism as well. There’s another problem there. They have to fill 24 hours, and that’s not easy to do. I’m thinking specifically of news stations like CNN. Think about it. We used to have a daily paper. Now, the news in a constant barrage peppering you relentlessly at every moment of the day.


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The Buzzworthification of News: You Won’t Believe the 10 Ways It Sucks

it's all about the bait
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I saw a post recently from a mother chastising people with pets for calling themselves parents. She felt offended by it, but didn’t want to say anything in person because she felt that would be rude. In the piece, however, she had no problem being condescending, saying it’s fine that people choose to be childfree and lower themselves to taking care of animals, but it certainly, most definitely, wasn’t the same thing. Nope. Uh-uh. She wanted to make sure that everyone reading that got that point, so she repeated it several times.

Here’s the thing. Most people who have animal companions/friends* fucking know that being a parent isn’t the same as taking care of animals. Even the ones who call themselves parents mostly do it as shorthand. I don’t use the term myself, but mostly because I don’t want to be a fucking parent, not even in jest, not even of my cats. I don’t freak out if someone else calls me my boys’ mom, though, because I know they don’t mean it literally. I know my cats are not little people (though they might think I’m a big, dumb cat), and I’m fucking glad they’re not.

A couple of my Tweet pals pointed out that her assumption about childfree people being that way out of choice was faulty and hurtful. I agree with that, but personally, I’m just miffed because of the hectoring tone. I find this to be a problem with much of popular online media, and I have to point the finger at Buzzfeed and to a lesser extent, Upworthy. Listicles, hot takes, contrary views, all aimed at garnering more clicks. Recently, there has been a spate of ‘why you shouldn’t eat this food’ articles which basically boil down to, “I don’t like this food, so you shouldn’t, either.” The first I noticed was about mac and cheese, and the most recent was on onions (by Buzzfeed themselves). I read the mac and cheese one despite my best intentions, but I gave a hard pass to the onions one. There was one in the middle about lemons or some other innocuous foodstuff that I’ve blocked from my brain. If you look at the title of the first article, it’s called, Mac and Cheese is the Worst. The title of the second is For Everyone Who Fucking Hates Onions with the url being, It’s Time to Admit that Onions Are Disgusting. After reading the first article, my takeaway was, “I hate mac and cheese, and I want everyone else to hate it, too, so I don’t feel bad about myself.” If you hate mac and cheese, hate mac and cheese! No one is forcing you to eat fucking mac and cheese. You’re grown. You don’t have to like what other people like, for fuck’s sake!
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