I never worked in retail, but I gave him some advice. Mostly it was keep moving, don't stand around. In a retail store there is probably always something to do, and if not, look for something. Don't stand around.
A couple of weeks later, he told me that had been really good advice. Someone at work -- an important someone, because he is engaged to the store manager -- told Jarrod that he liked it that Jarrod always kept moving. He said that too often young people just stand around and waste time when there isn't anyone telling them what to do, but he noticed that Jarrod keeps busy.
I told Jarrod that the important takeaway from this experience is that you should listen to your old dad.
I click on stuff on the Internet. All kinds of stuff. This is because I am interested in little factoids, like those 14 things you did not know about Ben Affleck. That is what made me good at Trivial Pursuit, back when that was a thing, or would make me a good Jeopardy! contestant, although only if I could play against the type of contestants who play on Family Feud or Wheel of Fortune, not against the actual contestants who show up on Jeopardy!, because those people are really good and would stomp me.
That is a lie, of course, the part about why I do it. I click on stuff because I am bored, because I am just looking for anything to entertain me for a minute or two, and because the clickbait people are very good at finding something that appears to be just interesting enough to get me to click. Also because the sports sites and political sites I like have lots of little clickbait items at the bottom of their articles, and so I can trust them right? And also because I have Norton software and anti-malware software that seem to work pretty well, just in case maybe I should not have trusted them.
I think that I am just starting to come around to obvious stuff that everyone else figured out ten years ago, but I have noticed a few patterns of annoying-ness related to these fun little sites, and I am finally starting to step away a little faster:
- If an article is not what the headline says ("The cameraman just kept recording" equals still photos of cute weather reporters), close it.
- If your article says "jaw-dropping", "the world wasn't ready", "number xx will shock you" (It's never number one. Only the other day I saw one that was, but, foolish me, the trick was they counted down), or some other cliched hook, forget it. On the bottom of a sports site the other day, there were five different clickbait choices. Three of them were jaw-dropping. I find these lines amusing. "One weird trick" and "Doctors hate her" are like the Pong of clickbait lines. The Internet keeps coming up with new ones fast. I guess when a thing works, everyone copies it really quick.
- I suppose that the obvious thing is, if I have to click through your site, when it could easily all be on one page, you don't have anything to say, do you, YOU JUST WANT ME TO CLICK. This seems so stupid when I write it down that it feels...really stupid. I feel so used.
I have noticed that even my good Internet friend George Takei is posting more stuff that feels like clickbait to me. I wonder if George is making money by directing people to click-generating sites. I hope George is doing well. I like George. I wish him the best.
I also noticed that when I Fucking Love Science directs me to a site, the information on that site is always -- always -- easily accessible with minimal clicks. That is because IFLS is a site meant to inform, not to generate clicks that do not benefit the user in a any way. So IFLS is OK.
Anyway, I'm learning.
p.s. "Amazing historical photos." "18 things the producers of [some show] didn't want you to know" (a lie -- almost all of them, the producers couldn't care less.) "You won't believe the net worth of..." "What these [formerly attractive women] look like now will shock you!"
How many of these lines are there?
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