Clickhole.com is the newest site from the creators of parody newspaper The Onion, and with its Thursday launch, it takes aim at satirizing so-called "clickbait" websites like Buzzfeed and Upworthy.
"For us, ClickHole is just another mirror we can hold up to society," The Onion managing editor Ben Berkley
told Fast Company. "There’s a lot of this 'Internet content' that's just so vapid and reductive — that’s counter-productive to the greater good . . . ClickHole is just a cool new medium for us to tell jokes through."
The site is full of easy-to-digest listicles, looping GIF pictures, quizzes, and urgent headlines just like Buzzfeed, but parodies such items by injecting them with tongue-in-cheek humor as well as social commentary.
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The site's mission statement is as funny as it is candid: "Today, the average website carelessly churns out hundreds of pieces of pandering, misleading content, most of which tragically fall short of going viral. At ClickHole, we refuse to stand for this. We strive to make sure that all of our content panders to and misleads our readers just enough to make it go viral."
Upon entering the Clickhole, users are greeted with moronic headlines like "6 Heads You Never Realized Are Also On Mount Rushmore," a quiz titled "If I Ordered Fries, Would You Have Any?," and an Upworthy-style video — "This Video Seems Silly, But It Makes A Good Point" — that features a cartoon dinosaur dancing to music while the words "Racism is bad" tumble around in the foreground.
Whether it's called clickbait or reader-resonant content, Buzzfeed's articles have made the company an internet-traffic behemoth, and a force of serious revenue because of that. In 2013 it projected roughly $60 million in ad sales and sponsored content, and is slated to make $120 in 2014,
according to Bloomberg News. Because of its success, many other sites have begun dipping their toes in the shallow end of the content pool, much to the chagrin of media critics.
"This is happening on news websites," said ClickHole editor Jermaine Affonso, woefully. "It's just not these little sites anymore. It's so pervasive, it's everywhere."
"These clickbait sites have the unique things they do, and they do these things quite well," said Berkley. "On the other hand . . . maybe they're the worst thing that ever happened to humanity."
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