Does Clickbait Make You Popular or Hated?! 😡

[gabriellabalagna]

Yeah, even if someone's putting out decent content, it can be annoying to be misled.

[gabriellabalagna]

Yup, I think you're right, subtly is key. There is a fine line between attention grabbing and clickbait.

Another thing I think plays a roll is the frequency of how often people do it.

[gabriellabalagna]

Yup, people do this with comics too. They post big updates for the first few weeks, then short ones there on out. Or they promise weekly updates, but never do. I understand it may not be intentionally misleading, but it sometimes it comes off that way.

[cherrystark]

I don't think a lot of people are intentionally trying to be dishonest. I think it's more like a product at the store gets repackaged and branded to be bigger and better than before, but in reality, we're being charged more for the same amount of product or sometimes less product

[PapaDom]

It really depends on how you pull it off.

For example, you've seen probably on Youtube thumbnails like these:

Those are some examples of pointless videos. Usually comes with a thumbnail having the following things in it: Giving away the content, having sometimes those emojis in it , asking questions, having the people in the video doing that dumb open mouth in shock, surprise which can be ANNOYING TO HELL IF EVERY VIDEO HAS IT!!...

...Sorry. It's just frustrating, Jesus. Sitting through the whole 10+ more minutes thing with someone who has a personality more boring than plain bread feels like a waste of time.

Now I'm going to show a clickbait thumbnail well done, in my opinion:

What is it saying to the unknown viewer? You're right, nothing.
Who is this person? What is good drama, and how are they involved with it?

The thing is, doing clickbait without being annoying and having some mystery behind it can draw the curiosity of new viewers in better than the hyperactive ones. I think that doing more of these can be better, but that's just my opinion.

[gabriellabalagna]

Yup, everyone's just trying to stand out and seem improved. Completely understandable.

[gabriellabalagna]

Yeah, spot on what I'm talking about. Those first thumbnails come off annoying. But then there are ones like your "good drama" example. I'm on the fence about whether I find those annoying. I agree though, creating some mystery and intrigue is good.

[migxmeg]

Besides being annoying, clickbait is a terrible fit for something long-term like a comic, where you build an audience/have a reputation. It works for pageviews but people get irritated and leave if you misrepresent content or style.

Not speaking from personal experience heh, but I'd think getting popular would involve getting the people who would like your comic to find it and start reading, so why not just be as accurate as possible about what it is?

[gabriellabalagna]

Yeah agreed. Another annoying example would be having detailed/top notch thumbnails, but then lower quality episodes. Or color thumbnails, but black and white episodes.

But how about the people who just write dramatic/hyped up titles for their episodes? I'm undecided if this annoying.

[migxmeg]

Episode titles... oooooo . Those don't feel very important, to me at least. On our end we often end up going low-effort or inside jokes at the last minute. I think I'd assume it was just the creator's silly quirk and wouldn't be too annoyed by it.

[vvodbow]

Interesting topic.
Others have highlighted how clickbaits could backfire, so I just want to add that many do purposely oversell their work to make them popular and hated. If the clickbait makes your work go viral, there are many who will stick around for the drama of seeing the content getting hate (and sometimes bringing in more hate themselves when things seem to die down). So if carefully executed, it could be the big break in their career. But as others have mentioned, that just seems to do more harm than good, especially with things as long-term as independent comic/novel.

Another note though, making clickbaits isn't really that far from clickable contents (i.e. most comic/novel promotions). Yes, there's a rather fine line between them, but this line shifts constantly among different target audience groups. For example, highlighting a popular-ish genre or trope in your comic/novel alone is enough to get blacklisted by some people who feel they have been "baited" once or more by same genre/trope (but this clearly isn't the place to go into that, so I won't).
That said, underselling your work also hurts your reputation, and the work itself.

In the end, it all boils down to understanding one's work and the target audience, which requires research, mindfulness and making a couple of mistakes here and there. As long as that doesn't go too far, for too long.

[gabriellabalagna]

Well put. It's all about finding that balance between enticing people to check out your stuff, but not over hyping it. Also, that's a good point about knowing the target audience. Seems younger people might not mind it as much, cause they know it's clickbait. And also, certain crowds may be more gullible/susceptible to it.

[marbl]

I think there's a difference between "good" and "bad" clickbait, good clickbat gets your attention while staying true to the content of the video, but the second you cross into the "$1,000,000 ___ CHALLENGE?!?! (GONE WRONG)" territory, it gets annoying quick.

But this applies way more to Youtube than comics/novels, and getting 9/10 of your views on the 1st episode because of a clickbait-y title/cover isn't good overall. I don't mind if the title and cover are attention-grabbing, as long as the content itself can keep readers coming back.

[DarkChibiShadow]

An example would be crafting a compelling title that makes people open and view content. And then when they view said content, their expectations aren't 100% met.

Even if you're not making clickbait (you shouldn't make clickbait, to be clear) you should always strive for a strong and compelling thumbnail and title, for just about everything. That's a big key for social media and sites/apps in general right now!

[gabriellabalagna]

Okay, so you're fine with it as long as it's not overboard? What would be an acceptable example to you?

[gabriellabalagna]

So would you unfollow someone if their content was good...but they started using clickbait titles/thumbnails/captions?

[writercynknapp]

Clickbait exists because someone pays others to drive visitors to a specific site.

Clickbait does not pay out for loyal customer or fans.

It is OK to be funny. It is OK to be relevant and use memes.

But the 'Made You Look' joke wears out.

[Tailzkip]

I believe the role of artist online is to just scream into the void until someone hears...There's no real shortcut click bait or not lol

[thedude3445]

Linus Tech Tips... No matter how good the videos are, the titles and thumbnails annoy me so much...

[gabriellabalagna]

@writercynknapp Yeah, I agree.

@Tailzkip Yup, repetition is key.

@thedude3445 Yeah, I see a lot of clickbait thumbnails on YouTube. Even for well made videos like you mentioned. It's kinda strange.