"I went on that ride courtesy of one of the internet’s many “content discovery solutions.” These companies occupy real estate at the margins of websites like CNN, Politico and TMZ, and fill them with links to content landfills with names like Buzz-Hut, CollegeFreakz, Dogsome and TimezOff. The links are often ads for stuff like bedsheets and dental implants that are disguised as news articles — or else barrel-scraping clickbait that tempts the reader toward still more ads — and because the thumbnails and headlines are written by the individual advertisers themselves, they range in caliber from straightforward sales pitches to gross body stuff. The links appear under the banner of “Related Content,” “You May Also Like,” or — their most accurate descriptor — “Around the Web.”...
These “Around the Web” widgets both haunt and tantalize us because they’re designed to stoke our most primal browsing habits. Clicking these links feels like taking a tour through the internet’s id — each grotesque screenshot and gender stereotype that manages to override our thinking brains and reduce us to pure click monsters. Below, a taxonomy of the basest impulses on display."
It would be an interesting study, to see which demographics actually click on those links, and why (do they think they are real journalism? Bored and mindlessly surfing? Embarrassed curiosity? Trying to fill a sibling's browser with weird cookies and malware?)
FB: I love the tone of this article about those random links at the bottom of news sites - slightly affronted, slightly amused, slightly too serious...
"A disproportionate amount of content involves maritime mysteries. Among them: “Mom Vanishes Aboard Carnival Cruise”; “Disney Worker Missing at Sea”; “Little Girl Was Found Alone at Sea, Decades Later She …”; and “30 Things the Ocean Is Hiding From You.”...
A consistent hook is a photograph that appears to be a private part but is not a private part."
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