Blue Blog
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Click Bait Emotion
Categories: journalism, Tech

It seems like there is so much click bait around these days. There is the list headline click bait. I guess because people would rather skim than read, they jump right to lists because it means they can know stuff without actually having to read anything except headlines of each item on the list.

What I find more intriguing than the lists, however, are the EMO headlines such as this one:

click bait headlines

There are so many like this, but this one in particular sums it all up. Emotion. Everybody wants to feel emotion. “You’ll cry when you watch this,” “This will warm your heart,” or “You’ll laugh so hard,” etc. It’s as if the Internet is so EMO challenged, they are as desperate to actually feel something as they are to get the next iPhone. Maybe it’s all the anti-depressants. I don’t know.

When I want to laugh, I just do a podcast with my friends. If I want my heart warmed, I’ll go to the opera or snuggle my dog. If I want to cry, well I’ll wait until a situation is forced upon me which makes me cry. I don’t want to cry in general. It seems kind of weird to me that someone would click something to make them cry. That alone should indicate there is a problem somewhere.

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