Don’t take the bait!
CLICK bait really annoys me.
Who said “Don’t most things?”?
Click bait shouldn’t be confused with chick bait, which describes me in my speedos when I parade up and down the white sandy beaches of exotic destinations like Barmouth and Rhyl.
Click bait is the online equivalent of the old fairground barker standing outside his tent, enticing potential customers with spiel like “Come inside, folks, and see the strangest, scariest things your eyes will ever behold!”
The first time I was unsuspectingly taken in by click bait was an online news story about an Australian woman who’d found a huge spider in her house.
It was accompanied by what I thought was a genuine photograph of a spider so enormous it couldn’t get through the Channel Tunnel, let alone the front door of a farmhouse in Wagga Wagga.
And before you say anything, I am aware that Australia is notorious for spiders that enter the house through the toilet. Readers, the one in the photo was so big it would have needed a JCB to enable it to pop up through anyone’s loo.
Had I known then about click bait I’d have ignored it, but even though my subconscious was telling me there are no spiders in the world as big as a National Express coach, curiosity got the better of me.
When I clicked on the article I was disappointed to find that the magnified spider in the photo had no connection with the spider in the article.
But it was too late. I’d taken the bait.
Current click bait includes intriguing photos accompanying headlines like “When the photographer took this picture, he had no idea what was hiding in the background” or “A fireman took these rescued puppies home only to find they
were ent”
My iron willpower and complete disdain for click bait prevents me from falling for these come-ons.
I can quite happily carry on my life without knowing what the photographer missed seeing when he took the picture.
Although . . . if you did take the bait and clicked on the other story . . . exactly what did those puppies turn out to be? something quite differ