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Comment by jnsaff2 | Hacker News Reader

[flagged]

People write these headlines for the readers of their publications, not random link aggregators such as HN, and they're not intended to be an analytical and accurate summary of the article content. Sometimes people have some fun with the headlines – that's not "clickbait".

Your caustic contemptuous attitude is nonsensical, humourless, and exactly the sort of thing that just sucks the fun out of HN at times.

There's probably more of a traditional fun with headlines streak in the UK than the US. The titles in The Economist print edition are full of wordplay. (Admittedly the subtitle is a more straightforward intro to the article.)

But there's obviously a subset of people here and elsewhere who really have an aversion to that sort of thing.

wiki:

>Clickbait is a text or a thumbnail link that is designed to attract attention and to entice users to follow that link and read, view, or listen to the linked piece of online content, being typically deceptive, sensationalized, or otherwise misleading.

Every internet writer I've talked to, or heard speak publicly, had their own rationalization that amounts to admitting to the desire to entice with headlines that don't convey an idea of what's on the other side of the link, but disclaim malice sufficient enough to earn the label "clickbait".

>Sometimes people have some fun with the headlines – that's not "clickbait".

*groan*

I feel zero obligation to make the title of an article or presentation strictly dry and factual. (Though often I do go with more straightforward titles when it makes sense.) And I'm fine with you not reading or listening to it.

It was a link to the london review of books.

You felt scammed by a link pertaining to be about London, that was in fact a review of books?

I'm gonna be honest i'm not sure what to say to you here.

Hipsterism?!

I don't really know where to begin.

Yes it is terrible to be 'scammed by diarrhea of mental hipsterism' - isn't it just so _tiresome_ and simply _too much_.

"I do not approve of anything that tampers with natural ignorance. Ignorance is like a delicate exotic fruit; touch it and the bloom is gone."

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