“The funny thing about clickbait as an idea is it's basically shorthand for: People really wanted to read this. Writing a really juicy headline to get people to read it, whether you got the substance or not, is not new to BuzzFeed and Upworthy. Is that gaming the algorithm? Was the algorithm of the penny newspaper — 'You can see the front page on the shelf, and you can't see the content in it, so those words better be big and gripping and delicious'? Is that gaming the algorithm for how newspapers were sold? Or is that just trying to get people to read your paper?”

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Kelly Peacock is an accomplished poet and social media expert based in Brooklyn, New York. Kelly has a Bachelor's degree in creative writing from Farieligh Dickinson University and has contributed to many literary and cultural publications. Kelly assists on a wide variety of quote inputting and social media functions for Quote Catalog. Visit her personal website here.

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