[Photography by Steve Thomas]
First up, what is clickbait? I guess we all know (or think we know), although maybe our judgment when calling a headline ‘clickbait’ can be a little biased or misinformed, especially if you don’t agree with what’s written. In my opinion (after 30-odd years at this), it’s a grossly sensationalised headline to draw you into an article or a video that doesn’t follow up with what that article or video actually eludes to, or leads into a decades-old story, or ends up with no conclusion or valid question or insight. That’s clickbait.
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Otherwise it’s a headline, where you have just a few seconds/words to hook a reader – and it does have to carry a punch, otherwise a potential reader will just flip over it until they see something juicier. Thus, the story gains no traction – be it great or crap.
This is nothing new, in any sphere of life – a headline reading “bland rolled oats that need lots of cooking” doesn’t carry the same clout as “the super food of champions.”
Unlike with mass media, cycling is a relatively small and niche arena, and some of us have been here for many years. The platforms rarely have major backing or big funds – hence we have to run true to what we deliver, or rather what you want to read or hear about. Otherwise, like so many others, we wouldn’t last long.
The price of free
Like all media platforms, we have to earn a crust – and it’s an ever more competitive and highly oversaturated market to try and stay afloat in, especially when you provide free and genuine content (which IMO has never been viable for long).
Years ago, you could walk into W.H. Smith and choose from a whole selection of glossy cycling (and other) magazines, which you had to pay for, could hold and read, return to and read again. These often survived and circulated for decades.
Sadly, when the internet came along, much of the mass media jumped on the presumed happening of the .com boom. They went free – figuring they’d work it out later. I’m not saying I told them so, but I did. Now almost all of those titles, and even the websites they once prided themselves on, have gone, or survive on a shoestring. The concept of free, sharing (ahem), that only benefits a select few, mostly those who sell that dream.
The way most cycling (and other) platforms earn money is primarily through advertising. When you’re not charged for the service – content, in this instance – at the point of ‘sale’, you get served ads so the provider can make ends meet.
The truth is, there is nothing for free in life. As much as I hate to quote these two phrases, I’ll do it: ‘you get what you pay for’ and ‘if you’re not paying for a product, you are the product’. These do run true, even if most turn a blind eye to these realities.
Also, it’s well worth factoring in that this also means the freelancers and staff who supply much of the ‘content’ online, and also some surviving print media, earn a fraction of what they did for the same work 20 years ago, hence the viability of many things is just not there, or borderline at best in other situations. This is the price of ‘free’.
The changing face of media: it’s in your hands
The cycling (and all) media environment has evolved – or perhaps devolved and dissolved rapidly over the past few years, largely through the aforementioned reasons, and now at warp speed thanks (not) to social media and AI.
The power is literally in your hands, in the form of mobile devices and other devices.
Whereas a few years ago, with print, advertising outlets were limited and that space scored premium rates (compared to the fractions of pennies it yields now). In print, any feedback and comments meant actually paying for and reading the content, thinking about it, and then picking up a pen and paper, writing a letter, and submitting it to the editor. Doing so was rare.
Now, with social media, YouTube, the numerous online platforms, fake (clickbait) headlines, and AI content, we’re swamped with so-called ‘free’ content. This has resulted in a huge decrease in human attention span. Reading or watching a five-minute video these days is seen as laborious by many, and some tend to comment in haste just for the hell of it, because they can. With social media comments in particular, many rarely even read the article – just the headline. Fair enough, fair game, I guess. Well, not really.
This ever-decreasing circle has made those fleeting clicks on content the currency of not only drawing in sparse ad revenue, but also in determining what you’re served. This is why you no longer see Sunday Times Magazine-like, multi-page humanitarian features, and are more likely to see some cheap trash about a Love Island contestant having implants, or Bonnie Blue’s big bang theory on TikTok. Sadly, this is where I think it’s all leading.
If people bought (or read, or even paid for) different material and looked beyond the headlines, you’d see more of it. But, as has always been the case, it’s blingy new kit and sensationalist go faster for free gadgets that score the numbers. It needs a bold headline to even make this past that thumb flip.
