clickbait
clickbait: sostantivo non numerabile
clickbaiting: sostantivo non numerabile
Smith is right that BuzzFeed tends not to publish clickbait in the narrow way that he defines it: articles with the sort of headline that purposely withholds information from readers.
When I found out how Wiktionary defined “clickbait“, it blew my mind! You’ll never believe what happened next!
According to Facebook, click-baiting is when a publisher posts links with headlines that encourages people to click to see more without offering much information about what will be viewed.
His point, of course, was that the “clickbait-ification” of our news is cheapening it.
Sull’Independent è uscito di recente un articolo simpatico dal titolo A History Of The World In Clickbait Headlines. Nel tipico stile ‘listicle’, l’articolo consisteva semplicemente di una lista con perle del genere: Seven Continents You’ll Never Guess Were Originally One Big Landmass, 60 Conspirators Who Stabbed Julius Caesar (#1 Blew His Mind) e This Man Thought He Was Going to India. What He Found Next Will Astonish You. L’articolo è una parodia azzeccatissima del genere di titoli ‘acchiappa click’, pensati apposta per attirare gli internauti di passaggio e stimolarli a continuare a leggere; così facendo il sito aumenta il volume di click, quindi di traffico di visitatori e dunque di introiti pubblicitari.
Sebbene il termine clickbait sia associato principalmente a siti come BuzzFeed e Upworthy, in realtà la raffinata arte del clickbaiting si pratica su tutti i siti che cercano di generare traffico, dai quotidiani più autorevoli ai siti che esistono solo per offrire pochi minuti di intrattenimento senza pretese a gli utenti di internet.
Origini del termine
Il sostantivo clickbait, fusione di click e bait (alla lettera, ‘esca per click’), è un esempio dell’accezione negativa di bait, cioè di qualcosa il cui unico scopo è quello di indurre in tentazione, di allettare con una promessa fasulla; altrettanto si dica del termine jailbait. Data l’inesorabile ascesa del touchscreen sarà interessante vedere se clickbait sarà rimpiazzato da un termine che rifletta più accuratamente il modo in cui si navigano le pagine web: tapbait? swipebait? Mm, non sarei pronta a scommetterci.
clickbait: uncountable noun
clickbaiting: uncountable noun
Smith is right that BuzzFeed tends not to publish clickbait in the narrow way that he defines it: articles with the sort of headline that purposely withholds information from readers.
When I found out how Wiktionary defined “clickbait“, it blew my mind! You’ll never believe what happened next!
According to Facebook, click-baiting is when a publisher posts links with headlines that encourages people to click to see more without offering much information about what will be viewed.
His point, of course, was that the “clickbait-ification” of our news is cheapening it.
The UK’s Independent newspaper recently published an entertaining piece called A History Of The World In Clickbait Headlines. In approved listicle fashion, the piece consisted simply of a list of items such as: Seven Continents You’ll Never Guess Were Originally One Big Landmass, 60 Conspirators Who Stabbed Julius Caesar (#1 Blew His Mind) and This Man Thought He Was Going to India. What He Found Next Will Astonish You. The piece accurately parodies the kind of headline that is designed specifically to entice the casual browser to read further, thus increasing readership and generating advertising revenue for the website.
Although the term clickbait is associated above all with sites like BuzzFeed and Upworthy, the fine art of clickbaiting is practised by all websites that are trying to attract readers, from the most highbrow of newspapers to sites whose sole purpose is to provide internet users with a few minutes of undemanding entertainment (also known as time-wasting).
Origins
The compound noun clickbait is formed by combining the words click and bait, clicking being what you do with a mouse and bait being what you use to catch fish. This meaning of bait has been extended to refer to something whose purpose is to tempt people to do something they probably shouldn’t, and clickbait’s negative aura may have something to do with this idea, as with the similar word jailbait. With the inexorable rise of the touchscreen it will be interesting to see if clickbait is replaced by a term that more accurately reflects browsing methods: tapbait? swipebait? Somehow it seems unlikely.
