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Examples
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In a fairly weak piece of clickbait (and the mainstream media knows 'conspiracy theories' are click magnets), Newsweek lists the following as "hip, trendy, least likely fringe beliefs":
YOUR NEW REALITY Darryl Mason 2010
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One can only expect that as the presidential race continues to garner more attention and headlines in the coming months that spam levels using the election as clickbait will only continue to proliferate.
eWeek Security Watch 2008
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Where is the part where you explain twitter’s business? reply clickbait
Twitter Has A Business: Job Agency Leena Rao 2005
vendingmachine commented on the word clickbait
Clickbait is a pejorative term describing web content that is aimed at generating online advertising revenue, especially at the expense of quality or accuracy, relying on sensationalist headlines to attract click-throughs and to encourage forwarding of the material over online social networks. Clickbait headlines typically aim to exploit the "curiosity gap", providing just enough information to make the reader curious, but not enough to satisfy their curiosity without clicking through to the linked content.
The ubiquity of clickbait on the Internet had begun to lead to a backlash against its use. Satirical newspaper The Onion launched a new website, ClickHole, that parodied clickbait websites such as Upworthy and Buzzfeed.
June 20, 2015
Mappleton commented on the word clickbait
(on the Internet) content, especially that of a sensational or provocative nature, whose main purpose is to attract attention and draw visitors to a particular web page.
"these recent reports of the show's imminent demise are hyperbolic clickbait"
- Definition from Google. December 2015.
December 29, 2015
tankhughes commented on the word clickbait
It's bait for you to click on, it's bait that wants clicks. So it's either N+N or V+N but it's endocentric either way. Kind of an odd connection. fishbait it to catch fish, so clickbait is to catch clicks. THE MORPHOLOGY OF THIS WORD WILL CHANGE YOUR LIFE...
bear bait shark bait jailbait
September 14, 2022