Where is that child star from the 1980s today? Which athlete had the most arrests? What are the most unhealthy fast-food items?
Today’s listicles, written with tantalizing-sounding topics like the ones above, typically serve as clickbait in the form of a slideshow. The reasons for the slideshow are to 1) artificially boost a website’s pageviews and 2) trick the reader into clicking a link to a different sponsored post. I find both unethical, and I would never advise a client to do something so sleazy.
I love that in the recent South Park episode titled “Sponsored Content,” a character said, “I feel like I’m always trying to chase the news somehow. It’s like I’m in a black void trying to reach the news story. But then the next thing I know I’m reading an ad for GEICO. So I click out of that and try to read the news story, but it’s not a news story, it’s a slideshow, and I’m looking at the worst celebrity plastic surgery jobs ever.”
Is this how media companies want to earn a buck these days, by annoying and deceiving their audiences? I’m putting my foot down, refusing to look at any more slideshows. If that means I don’t get to find out the horrifying secret that hikers discovered in the woods or the 14 things about Kate Middleton that annoy the queen, so be it.
Won’t you join me?