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The clickbait election
Dec. 13th, 2020 03:13 pmI’ve spent the last few weeks gazing in awe – in the original sense, implying mild horror – at the aftermath of the US elections. Back in 2016 I said Trump would win, and win he did, and this time round it was pretty clear that Biden was going to carry it, and he did. What I didn’t see coming was the explosion of allegations of theft and vote rigging and, more importantly, just how many people would go along with it.
I mean, Trump was always going to kick up a fuss about losing because he knows no other way, but the sheer volume of people buying it caught me on the hop. Otherwise apparently functional human beings with jobs and families seemingly sincerely believed the story of how the election had been stolen, no matter how often the story changed – and one sure sign of an unreliable narration is the terms of the narrative change as evidence changes so the conclusion can remain the same.
First it was Arizona and then Wisconsin and Michigan, before Georgia and then the Trump Watermark, followed by Dominion and the Kraken and then some videos and then the Texas Supreme court bid… and all along it was ‘Okay, so this didn’t work, so let’s move on to the next idea that fits the conclusion.’.
In spite of all that I’ve been pretty certain all the way through that it was all bullshit, for one main reason: I’ve spent much of the last decade of writing bullshit on the internet to milk people for clicks, and I know it when I see it.
I’ve generated tens, if not hundreds of millions of pageviews which means there’s a reasonable chance that you’ve read my content and never knew it. If so, thanks for your clicks.
You see, there’s an art of sorts to creating clickbait. It doesn’t have to be true, or even part true. It helps to have a kernel of truth in there to build a narrative around, but it’s not necessary. What’s more important is that your audience want to believe it because it speaks to how they see themselves and the world around them. I’ll give you an example.
During the 2016 election cycle, Donald Trump accused Barack Obama of founding ISIS. In response to this, I wrote a piece saying that Obama had accused Trump of founding the Village People in return. It did very well, generating several hundred thousand views, and judging by the comments the reason it did well was because people believed it, or wanted to. It reflected something about how Obama supporters saw themselves, and him. Calm, collected in the face of fury, and possessed of a dry, intelligent, disparaging wit. And it’s speaking to that self-image, and how people think the world ought to be and not how it is, that makes a good piece of clickbait. It draws upon the narratives of how people see themselves, and expands upon that narrative. Depicting actual reality is entirely secondary to the process.
If you’re going to try and base your clickbait with a kernel of reality, the first thing it’s important to do when constructing such a narrative is aggressively cherrypick your data points. People tell me the evidence of fraud is overwhelming, which I guess makes it Schrodinger’s Evidence; simultaneously overwhelming and insufficient to convince a single judge at the same time. That’s what happens when you only look at supporting evidence, and why these cases have consistently fallen apart in courtrooms where there is an adversarial process with people who’ll challenge the claims and offer a different or more complete narrative.
What you’re really doing is taking individual points which support the narrative you’re creating and amplifying them. If six people on twitter say something stupid, make it a thousand. If there’s a video which is uncertain or can be interpreted in different ways, tell the story about it people want to believe.
But it’s not just that. Once people have started to believe the narrative they’ll start finding their own supportive datapoints. I’ve literally had people tell me my own clickbait is true, and find evidence to support events I know I made up. It is possible to create a reality for people to live in to a degree they’ll prefer it to the real world, and they’ll seek confirmation that the reality you made up is the real one. And then you can write stuff that supports the story they’ve begun to tell themselves about the story you created. If you’re lucky, it becomes self-perpetuating.
The second thing about clickbait is that the story you told yesterday does not matter. You create a new one for today. This is why clickbait narratives change so quickly. The story you told yesterday will get debunked quickly enough so you have to keep moving it forward. So the Arizona Affidavits were thrown out of court as they fell apart under cross examination yesterday? Who cares! Today there’s 700,000 more votes than ballots in Wisconsin. And by the time the fact checkers have got to that you’ve already moved on to signatures in Georgia. It doesn’t matter if it’s not true. At every step some people will believe it and fall by the wayside and cling to it, meaning that reach of the debunking will lessen as you move. It’s about generating noise. Creating smoke where there is no fire, or next to none. If you’re creating smoke you cannot let it disperse enough to let your audience see clearly, so you’ll have to light a new source for it tomorrow.
So how can you avoid falling for created narratives like this? I have a few of suggestions:
1: Don’t rely for your news on people whose business model relies upon you clicking on their stuff. Doing so makes it in their interest to hold your attention, and the risk that they will do so by exaggerating, cherrypicking and bullshitting is so high is becomes almost impossible to separate the wheat from the chaff. If you are not paying for your media then the product being sold is you, and the best click – and therefore advertising - rates are got from angry, frightened and frustrated people.
Instead, pay directly for your news wherever possible.
2/ Don’t look for evidence that supports your position. Look for evidence that proves you wrong, and look for it honestly. If you can’t find it, then, and only then, assume you might have a point.
This is especially true if you encounter a perfectly logical straight-line narrative, each step supported, which leads to a single inescapable solution.
More; if the supporting evidence for the conclusion you’re following changes more than twice, odds on it’s bullshit. Assume it is until proven otherwise.
3/ If you think I’m not talking about you because you’re really smart and would never fall for this, then thank you for your clicks. You’re my easiest customer. The person who is so sure they can never be wrong; the die-hard Brexit remainer who just knows as a matter of fact you’re right? That’s you? I’ve written a shitload of remain clickbait and you went for it. The Democrat who thought that piece about Trump was just so funny? Yeah, cheers for that too.
4/ The best defence is not to be sure. To say to yourself ‘Really? Maybe I’d better double-check that’ when the evidence seems overwhelming. Imagine the internet is a courtroom and you’re on the jury but the court has only provided a prosecution lawyer. You’re going to have to fill the defence in for yourself.
The weird thing about all of this is that back in about 2012-13 I was offered a gig writing for Breitbart. They didn’t even know who I was, they just encountered my online troll persona and thought my click generating ability would probably be a good fit for them. It’s odd to think that if I’d taken it it’s perfectly possible I might be creating the rigged election narrative now, rather than critiquing it. Life takes us in strange directions.
I mean, Trump was always going to kick up a fuss about losing because he knows no other way, but the sheer volume of people buying it caught me on the hop. Otherwise apparently functional human beings with jobs and families seemingly sincerely believed the story of how the election had been stolen, no matter how often the story changed – and one sure sign of an unreliable narration is the terms of the narrative change as evidence changes so the conclusion can remain the same.
First it was Arizona and then Wisconsin and Michigan, before Georgia and then the Trump Watermark, followed by Dominion and the Kraken and then some videos and then the Texas Supreme court bid… and all along it was ‘Okay, so this didn’t work, so let’s move on to the next idea that fits the conclusion.’.
In spite of all that I’ve been pretty certain all the way through that it was all bullshit, for one main reason: I’ve spent much of the last decade of writing bullshit on the internet to milk people for clicks, and I know it when I see it.
I’ve generated tens, if not hundreds of millions of pageviews which means there’s a reasonable chance that you’ve read my content and never knew it. If so, thanks for your clicks.
You see, there’s an art of sorts to creating clickbait. It doesn’t have to be true, or even part true. It helps to have a kernel of truth in there to build a narrative around, but it’s not necessary. What’s more important is that your audience want to believe it because it speaks to how they see themselves and the world around them. I’ll give you an example.
During the 2016 election cycle, Donald Trump accused Barack Obama of founding ISIS. In response to this, I wrote a piece saying that Obama had accused Trump of founding the Village People in return. It did very well, generating several hundred thousand views, and judging by the comments the reason it did well was because people believed it, or wanted to. It reflected something about how Obama supporters saw themselves, and him. Calm, collected in the face of fury, and possessed of a dry, intelligent, disparaging wit. And it’s speaking to that self-image, and how people think the world ought to be and not how it is, that makes a good piece of clickbait. It draws upon the narratives of how people see themselves, and expands upon that narrative. Depicting actual reality is entirely secondary to the process.
If you’re going to try and base your clickbait with a kernel of reality, the first thing it’s important to do when constructing such a narrative is aggressively cherrypick your data points. People tell me the evidence of fraud is overwhelming, which I guess makes it Schrodinger’s Evidence; simultaneously overwhelming and insufficient to convince a single judge at the same time. That’s what happens when you only look at supporting evidence, and why these cases have consistently fallen apart in courtrooms where there is an adversarial process with people who’ll challenge the claims and offer a different or more complete narrative.
What you’re really doing is taking individual points which support the narrative you’re creating and amplifying them. If six people on twitter say something stupid, make it a thousand. If there’s a video which is uncertain or can be interpreted in different ways, tell the story about it people want to believe.
But it’s not just that. Once people have started to believe the narrative they’ll start finding their own supportive datapoints. I’ve literally had people tell me my own clickbait is true, and find evidence to support events I know I made up. It is possible to create a reality for people to live in to a degree they’ll prefer it to the real world, and they’ll seek confirmation that the reality you made up is the real one. And then you can write stuff that supports the story they’ve begun to tell themselves about the story you created. If you’re lucky, it becomes self-perpetuating.
The second thing about clickbait is that the story you told yesterday does not matter. You create a new one for today. This is why clickbait narratives change so quickly. The story you told yesterday will get debunked quickly enough so you have to keep moving it forward. So the Arizona Affidavits were thrown out of court as they fell apart under cross examination yesterday? Who cares! Today there’s 700,000 more votes than ballots in Wisconsin. And by the time the fact checkers have got to that you’ve already moved on to signatures in Georgia. It doesn’t matter if it’s not true. At every step some people will believe it and fall by the wayside and cling to it, meaning that reach of the debunking will lessen as you move. It’s about generating noise. Creating smoke where there is no fire, or next to none. If you’re creating smoke you cannot let it disperse enough to let your audience see clearly, so you’ll have to light a new source for it tomorrow.
So how can you avoid falling for created narratives like this? I have a few of suggestions:
1: Don’t rely for your news on people whose business model relies upon you clicking on their stuff. Doing so makes it in their interest to hold your attention, and the risk that they will do so by exaggerating, cherrypicking and bullshitting is so high is becomes almost impossible to separate the wheat from the chaff. If you are not paying for your media then the product being sold is you, and the best click – and therefore advertising - rates are got from angry, frightened and frustrated people.
Instead, pay directly for your news wherever possible.
2/ Don’t look for evidence that supports your position. Look for evidence that proves you wrong, and look for it honestly. If you can’t find it, then, and only then, assume you might have a point.
This is especially true if you encounter a perfectly logical straight-line narrative, each step supported, which leads to a single inescapable solution.
More; if the supporting evidence for the conclusion you’re following changes more than twice, odds on it’s bullshit. Assume it is until proven otherwise.
3/ If you think I’m not talking about you because you’re really smart and would never fall for this, then thank you for your clicks. You’re my easiest customer. The person who is so sure they can never be wrong; the die-hard Brexit remainer who just knows as a matter of fact you’re right? That’s you? I’ve written a shitload of remain clickbait and you went for it. The Democrat who thought that piece about Trump was just so funny? Yeah, cheers for that too.
4/ The best defence is not to be sure. To say to yourself ‘Really? Maybe I’d better double-check that’ when the evidence seems overwhelming. Imagine the internet is a courtroom and you’re on the jury but the court has only provided a prosecution lawyer. You’re going to have to fill the defence in for yourself.
The weird thing about all of this is that back in about 2012-13 I was offered a gig writing for Breitbart. They didn’t even know who I was, they just encountered my online troll persona and thought my click generating ability would probably be a good fit for them. It’s odd to think that if I’d taken it it’s perfectly possible I might be creating the rigged election narrative now, rather than critiquing it. Life takes us in strange directions.
