Click Bait

Click bait may be one of humanity’s oldest journalistic techniques. Long before social media feeds and outrage algorithms, stone tablets were already compressing complex realities into irresistible certainty proclaiming victories as unprecedented, rulers as divinely chosen, and rivals as utterly vanquished. Medieval town criers refined the craft reporting on fires, plagues, and omens, knowing full well that “All Is Well Today” would never stop anyone in the square. Early newspapers and pamphlets learned the same lesson, favoring scandal, fear, and absolutes to compete for attention in crowded streets and coffeehouses. What changes across history is not exaggeration, but costume: divine authority becomes royal decree, royal decree becomes journalistic urgency, journalistic urgency becomes algorithmic certainty. By the late 20th century the headline even started to scold—You’re doing it all wrong—a tactic now polished into the professional astonishment of platforms that announce, with academic confidence, that science itself has been wrong until this very moment.