I’m starting to get really wary of “aggregators,” those sites that simply steal stuff from other sites, don’t give them credit, and usually compile lists of things that seem to attract people, like “The 7 things you need to know to have great sex,” or “You won’t believe what this cat did!”. What bothers me is the lack of attribution; the use of other people’s work to get $$ for the aggregators. If you want to learn how these things work, and how the sites care only about profit and not journalism, read the article from the January 5 New Yorker, “King of Clickbait” by Andrew Marantz (free read). It’s about Emerson Spartz, a Chicago boy who made good by creating one aggregator site after another. It’s an eye-opening piece and should give you a distaste for the whole enterprise.
That said, I’ll now be hypocritical and call your attention to a piece I contributed to (before I’d read the above article!) on animal reproduction. They wanted someone with “authority” to remark upon the reproductive habits of animals, and so I said some stuff about spiders, mites, and bowerbirds. Here’s the click-attracting headline, and you can go to the piece by clicking on the salacious screenshot.
“Get laid”? Really? Is that the way to turn kids onto biology, or only raise their hormone titer?
But I must admit that the quote about chocolate and roses is mine. I am a bad person.
But I am not responsible for this headline about the mating structure built by red mites. I wish people wouldn’t have to porn up animal reproduction, which is fascinating enough without this kind of embellishment.
I think the chocolate and roses line was good but I agree that the rest is over the top and actually would make me not want to read it because if they were manipulating readers in such a way to entice them to peruse the article, then they may resort to exaggerating the facts as well.
Clearly, I’m not their target demographic.
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It would put me off reading it too, because I would assume from the title the facts were unreliable.
We had to do some outreach work in cum castles, back in the late 80s-early 90s. Most folks know of them as “glory holes” and “adult bookstores”. A prominent member of “Focus on the Family” made the issue of the filthy emission-laden environments in local bookstores a rallying cause. Then he was busted in one as a client during a prostitution sting. Go figure.
I like how the article I linked to is written in the first person singular, yet has two authors. I’d rather hang out in the “bad” part of town, at night, than be caught out anywhere near the Focus campus, day or night. Them’s some sca-a-a-ary people.
Buzzfeed is becoming increasingly interesting. They’ve recently appointed a fairly impressive stable of science journalists; Virginia Hughes, Dan Vergano and someone else that I can’t remember.
They are also doing some interesting serious reportage, for example:
http://www.buzzfeed.com/mikegiglio/this-is-how-isis-smuggles-oil#.xeaG40oWV
I suspect you may also like this!
http://www.buzzfeed.com/tomchivers/things-i-want-my-son-to-know#.upYZ1w59p
BuzzFeed has two sorts of things it posts: 1. Up-front list-format clickbait. 2. Pretty good journalistic think-pieces. It’s somewhat disconcerting how these live on the same site.
There’s nothing wrong with amusing clickbait that doesn’t pretend to be anything else; they get points for seeking the wisdom of yourself, and you get an opportunity for public outreach 😉
That’s right. There could be a great way to spread the word via nightjar spotting. People love that stuff, judging by my Facebook feed. No porning-up required.
This somewhat reminds me of Inman’s piece on the red velvet mite: http://theoatmeal.com/comics/red_velvet_mite
Reminds me of this bit of lascivious documentary courtesy of John Cleese.
The worst part of the red velvet mite headline is that it is basically stolen from The Oatmeal:
http://theoatmeal.com/comics/red_velvet_mite
Similarly crude, but at least gets in a bit more natural history!
Yesssss! I knew that sounded familiar. Thanks for posting that link.
Admittedly I think the spermatophore forts are kind of interesting as a reproductive strategy, but mostly because it’s a mite building them since I usually don’t associate arthropods with building structures to demonstrate their fitness.
The Times article on Emerson Spartz was a fascinating and disturbing read, he’s like a modern day Edward Bernays (read his book ‘Propaganda’). It was like reading a history of how the internet became a horrible place to get news. Spartz even listened to Tony Robbins (eww), no wonder Spartz doesn’t care that he’s adding to the darkside of the internet, he’s making lots of money at it therefore he’s successful.
It mentioned Upworthy a few times. Upworthy almost made me angry enough to write a sternly worded letter, it’s not news or journalism, it’s an advert covered in spam. Spartz did get a bit of respect from me for naming rooms in his office after locations in Westeros but the internet would be a nicer place if he used his powers for good.
Even the BBC had some story on valentine’s day with the headline “Animals are kinkier than you”, which I refused to click on. I’m no prude but I’m extremely sick of this type of low-brow soft-core newsporn, getting almost as bad as (but not quite) the page 3 girls. Pathetic times indeed, when we have to try to anthropomorphize animal reproductive strategies and link them to our own specific perversions. Granted, it may have been an ok article, but the title alone will keep me away. and I’d be willing to bet there was some stupid “50 shades” reference in it. Is this some new form of neoteny, where as a culture we have arrested our intellectual development at the level of a 13 year old?
I sound like an old curmudgeon…. Now, Get Off My Lawn!
For Valentine’s Day, I recommend most pleasantly surprising your significant other by attending a symphony concert, the symphony playing the musical score of, while attendees are watching, “Casablanca.”
I couldn’t agree more.