We all know about the “clickbait” used by sites like PuffHo and BuzzFeed to get you to click to new pages, all in the interest of having you see more ads. It can take the form of “teasers,” or of “listicles”: things like, “Ten awesome new ways to use avocados,” which involves clicking on ten successive pages.

These things really annoy me because the ploy is so obvious. One of the worst brands of these articles is the “you wouldn’t believe what happened next!” tag, which of course requires you to click on a new page to find out what happened.

Well, perusing PuffHo, I came upon one of the more noxious subspecies of the species given above.  Lexi Novak (a woman) has written this piece taken from  Allure. (Click on the screenshot to go to the piece):

What sentient being could resist that? I couldn’t. Did vermin grow in her armpits? Did she become a social pariah? Go see for yourself.

Here’s an excerpt:

Day two: Before attempting a deodorant detox for seven days, I probably should have checked the weather forecast, because I picked the hottest, muggiest week of the year. The streets were swampy, the subway was an inferno, and my armpits were rank. Awesome!

Awesome indeed. It goes downhill from there.  Here is the miscreant in her sweeter-smelling days:

Below the article are 182 comments—about ten times what I get for a science post on this site. Should I should write about not wearing deodorant?

And the comments are pretty bad, too. Here are the two most recent:

God bless America—land that I love!

Put your thoughts about online journalism and the “see more pages” trick below.