“Are Democrats giving you cancer? Buy my new book and find out.”
– Shrewd fearmonger
Since starting this site I’ve been able to meet all kinds of cool people, discover all sorts of new business opportunities, and learn stuff from guys who are infinity smarter than me. It’s been pretty awesome. With that said, I also have a fraction of the readership that a lot of “big name sites do.”
While this could be because of the fact that I suck, which is a possibility, I actually think that it’s because of the fact that I’ve never made any viral content. I write about my real life and things that I actually do. There are no posts about “500 secret tips that all rich people do,” or “100 ways you can start making money now.” In fact, my little affiliate project has so far only generated about $10 this month. Although I could easily fudge the numbers and say something like “I made $75,000 by only working an hour a day for one month,” I’d rather be honest. My whole project was based around people clicking through and buying more expensive items, I don’t even earn a commission when they actually do buy the penny products.
Secondly, I suspect that writing about practical and applicable information draws in a far smaller audience than screeching about the end of the world does. The world is filled with losers who’d rather mentally masturbate over the latest thesis on why fat girls are causing global warming than pick up a dumbbell or start a business.
While those scheming leftoids and shambling feminazis are confiscating our commemorative Ronald Reagan dishware and ruining the whole country, they are good for business. Thanks to shameless click-baiting, Real Alpha Males™ are setting down their Tucker Max books and joining the fight. By whining in various comment sections and forums they’ve shown their Marxist oppressors who’s boss. Like the ancient Spartans, today’s men won’t go down without a fight. The only different between them and the warriors of old is technological. While old time men had to fight with spears, storm the beaches of Normandy, and risk their lives; the manly men of today must write 1,000 word lists on how hypergamy is ruining America.
Who does click-bait appeal to?
While working on this article, I decided to investigate what types of audiences click-bait material tends to draw in. To conduct my research I decided to discredit certain authors like Tim Ferriss and James Altucher. While both men are masters of creating intriguing headlines, they usually have quality high quality articles. Even when they craft numbered lists or short posts they tend to have great content. While posts like 12 Rules for Learning Foreign Languages in Record Time might be cheesy, they still have some good advice. As such, I decided to focus only on the negative and really lazy click-bait.
Lazy people
As I’ve mentioned before, most modern writing is written to avoid any intellectual stimulation. Some of the most challenging books that I have ever read took me weeks to finish. Ecce Homo, a 90 page book, took me over a month to read. It was dense and challenging. People don’t want to have to spend six weeks struggling with a book that makes them feel stupid. They want to read 600 articles in an afternoon that allow them to show off how “smart” they are.
Fat people
I would venture a guess that most of the men writing, and reading, “How liberals and feminism have ruined your future wife” are fat. It’s like a gender flipped version of all those Jezebel articles about how men are all dopy frat boys. Every blowhard who I’ve met in real life, and every public figure like Tom Leykis and Rush Limbaugh, that has had some theory on why women are evil has been either out of shape or had some weird personality flaw. I really doubt that a guy like Hugh Hefner has any incentive to sulk around a WordPress blog and post rants about how modern women have ruined his life.
Miserable people
Misery can be monetized. I’d venture a guess and say that at least half the population is severely unhappy. It’s easier to find things that outrage you and fuel your misery than it is to overcome it. The average person is too lazy to build up their willpower and would rather find scapegoats than work on themselves.
Conclusion
Initially I was kind of upset that I’ve never gotten the type of traffic that viral content masters seem to continually churn out. Now I don’t really care. I’d rather have one or two articles that get picked up because of their quality than a dozen posts that draw attention because I was able to pander to a bunch of slugs.
Additionally, Matt Forney had a post similar to mine today. Apparently quality over emotional appeal is on everyone’s mind. I actually started writing this post last week, and just added the final touches earlier this morning.
