#not paying any attention to the clickbait titles that are saying shes fired | Explore Tumblr posts and blogs

chasholidays · 7 years ago

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Clarke and Bellamy write for different websites and accidentally end up in a competition of who can write/get away with the most ridiculous headlines.

Clarke understands why people hate clickbait headlines. She really does. They’re attention-grabbing in all the worst ways, and she hates when they make someone who’s doing good out to be an asshole, or imply that gluten murdered someone’s entire family or whatever.

But as a writer? They’re really fun to come up with. She loves figuring out the right angle to sell things, and given she ends up writing a lot of bullshit, filler articles, it’s nice to come up with a good lead.

There’s an argument to be made that she’s tricking people, but, honestly, clicking on an article in error really isn’t so bad, in a global sense. Anyone who’s seriously upset that they wasted two minutes of their lives reading something they didn’t want to probably would have clicked on an article with an accurate headline to complain about the content anyway.

Besides, ad revenue is ad revenue. She knows what her job is, and it’s not keeping people from leaving outraged comments about how she deceived them with her headlines.

In fact, that’s kind of a bonus.

She’s idly vanity-googling herself when she finds a twitter poll titled “Whose clickbait headlines are better/worse, Bellamy Blake or Clarke Griffin?” and that’s what really kicks the whole thing into high gear.

The poll is neck-in-neck, which is of course the biggest issue. If Clarke was winning handily, she could let it go, but there’s actual debate in the responses, people making cases for her versus this unknown person.

It doesn’t take much to bring out Clarke’s competitive spirit. Clarke has her competitive spirit on speed dial.

The first step is obviously figuring out who Bellamy Blake is and what headlines they’re writing, and that’s pretty easy. He writes for Arkadia Online, which is–unexpected. She’s heard of Arkadia Online, and they have a somewhat older demographic, one of those websites that talks a lot of shit about millennials, and judging from Bellamy’s twitter and articles, he is a millennial, and he doesn’t really fit in with the rest of the brand. He’s a good writer, just nothing like any of the other Arkadia Online staff.

And his headlines really are something else.

It’s not just that they’re clickbaity, it’s that they’re actually inaccurate. It started, from what she can tell, with an article he published after the 2016 election, titled World’s Best Brownies, written in the style of one of those recipe blogs that refuses to just get to the actual recipe. The vast majority of the post was a long diatribe about the political state of the country and how shitty everything was and then finally, at the end, So yeah, let’s eat some fucking brownies, and the recipe.

The response had been mixed, to say the least, and now Bellamy has a reputation as the guy who injects politics into everything, and Clarke can’t say he doesn’t deserve it. An article called Top Five Cutest Kittens includes five adorable kittens, but they’re used as palate cleaners between examples of police brutality. It does seem like a bit of a cruel trick to Clarke, but as soon as anyone clicks in, he’ll have a subtitle with the actual content of the article, for anyone who bothers to read it.

Still, when Clarke wants cute kittens, it’s because she knows she needs a break from the garbage fire that is the world, so she wouldn’t really appreciate getting baited and switched like that.

Even if he does have excellent taste in kitten pictures.

Emailing Bellamy happens without her really meaning it to, clicking on his address at the end of the post and writing the subject line: is what you do actually clickbait? before she’s actually come up with any kind of follow-up message.

She stares at the body of the message for a second, then finds the link for the Twitter poll and pastes it in, adding, Asking for the internet.

It’s one of those emails she sends without really expecting to get a response. Obviously, she wouldn’t mind getting one, but the email is out in the ether. The ball is in Bellamy Blake’s court, and he might just file it away as spam or hate mail or something. If she got a message from an unknown person with that subject line, she’d probably assume it was someone yelling at her and delete it.

Maybe she could have thought that one through a little more.

In fact, though, it’s only about half an hour before he responds, and suddenly they’re corresponding, which she should have recognized as the warning sign it was almost immediately. But she’s always been a little slow with these things.

From: Bellamy Blake ([email protected])To: Clarke Griffin ([email protected])Subject: Re: is what you do actually clickbait?

Merriam Webster defines clickbait as “something (such as a headline) designed to make readers want to click on a hyperlink especially when the link leads to content of dubious value or interest,” so after some consideration I’ve decided that what I do is actually reverse clickbait. The headline is designed to make people click, but the content isn’t of dubious value. Hope that clears everything up.

From: Clarke Griffin ([email protected])To: Bellamy Blake ([email protected])Subject: Re: is what you do actually clickbait?

Did you really start a response with “Merriam Webster defines”? Not doing that is like journalism 101.

From: Bellamy Blake ([email protected])To: Clarke Griffin ([email protected])Subject: Re: is what you do actually clickbait?

Punctuation goes inside the quotation marks, if we’re doing writing critique over email.

From: Clarke Griffin ([email protected])To: Bellamy Blake ([email protected])Subject: Re: is what you do actually clickbait?

According to Purdue University, question marks and exclamation points go outside of quotation marks when the punctuation applies to the whole sentence.

Hope that clears everything up

She’s expecting that to be the end of it, less because they were both kind of assholes and more because there isn’t really anything else to say. They had a conversation, and that conversation is now over. She follows him on Twitter, because he does seem decently cool, and she’s a little curious what else he’s going to write. Friends don’t let friends miss out on weird headlines.

He follows her back, and two days later DMs her, which she’s maybe unreasonably excited about.

bellamyblake1: So if you were writing an article about getting rid of the electoral college, which fall fashion trend would you reference in the headline?Asking for a friend

edenclarke: What are the fall fashion trends I’m picking from?

bellamyblake1: ShitI was hoping you’d know someScarves? I feel like I don’t understand when/why people wear scarves nowThat probably makes them a fashion trend

edenclarke: WowYou really thought this one through

bellamyblake1: “Five Scarves You Need This Holiday Season”That works, right?

edenclarke: You know, I’ve looked at the rest of your websiteIt’s very normalHow do you possibly get away with this?

bellamyblake1: I write very normal articlesThey love themI’m hitting a demographic they don’t know how to reachThey feel my puff pieces appeal to women and millennials

edenclarke: So no one actually reads what you write

bellamyblake1: Not for a whileMy best friend is our tech guyHe does all the coding, checks the email, etc etcEveryone else on staff is a technophobeAnd coming from me that’s saying a lot because I’m still scared of twitter

edenclarke: That’s not technophobia, that’s survival instinctEveryone should be scared of twitterSo you get away with those headlines because no one’s paying attention?That makes me feel better

bellamyblake1: What’s that supposed to mean?

edenclarke: I actually have editors reading my stuffI couldn’t get away with the stuff you get away with

bellamyblake1: Oh yeah that makes senseI figured you weren’t really committed to the whole thing

Clarke frowns at the screen. It’s a trap. She knows it’s a trap. He’s obviously fucking with her, and she deserves it, since she was kind of fucking with him. She can let this go and be a smarter, more mature person.

edenclarke: Not really committed?

bellamyblake1: You’re just in it for the clicks

edenclarke: As opposed to you, with your higher moral calling

bellamyblake1: Hey, I’m convincing people to read stuff that’s good for themI’m okay with considering that a higher moral calling

edenclarke: Sometimes people might actually want to see a bunch of cat picturesIt’s not actually fair to make them read about politics when they’re trying to take a break

bellamyblake1: TrueBut in my defense, I do show them the cat picturesI found five scarf pictures on my own, by the waySo thanks for nothing

edenclarke: No problemAny time

That’s basically how it goes, for the next couple months. The two of them will chat every few days about the next ridiculous headline they’re planning to use, each of them egging the other on to new heights, and Clarke’s always expecting someone with some kind of authority to protest to what they’re doing, but some of the weirdos on twitter have taken notice of the escalation and are talking about it a lot, so her bosses are happy, and Bellamy’s paper seems to genuinely have no idea what he does. They still think he’s writing lifestyle articles instead of attempting to incite revolution.

It’s kind of cool, but a little–unsatisfying. Clarke likes Bellamy, in a fairly limited sense, but her internet stalking hasn’t really turned up much about him. Pictures from college show an attractive, smiling boy with messy hair and white teeth, but she hasn’t found further records of him. He’s a few years older than her, apparently single, with a younger sister who likes to make fun of him on twitter.

She thinks she might like him, but it feels like she needs more information to really make up her mind about it. And she’d like to get it, so she can stop having these fluttery feelings every time she sees his name. Those can’t be right.

Still, when he DMs her, it still makes her heart skip every time. And when she sees the message, Hey you’re in Seattle, right?, it goes into overdrive.

edenclarke: StalkerYeahWhy?

bellamyblake1: I’m going to be in town next weekInterview

edenclarke: Interview?You’re leaving behind the exciting world of online journalism?

bellamyblake1: Even betterI might get hired as an actual political writerInstead of lifestyleNot that I mind lifestyle, but

edenclarke: Yeah, your heart seems to be somewhere elseSo you might be relocating?

bellamyblake1: MaybeIt’s mostly online so they don’t require movingBut they prefer it and my lease is up in a month or so and I kind of hate LA

edenclarke: Wow, yeahI can’t imagine you living there

bellamyblake1: I grew up hereBut I’m thinking it might be time for a changeAnyway, I was hoping you’d be willing to meet upShow me around town a littleSell me on the placeOr not, I guess, depending on how you feel about me moving there

edenclarke: I can probably pencil you in, yeahSend me your flight detailsAnd scheduleWe’ll see when we’re both free

The next few days feel endless. Bellamy’s coming in on Saturday afternoon and staying until Wednesday, to get the best deal on flights. When she offers to grab drinks with him after he lands, he agrees, and asks if she would have time on Sunday to do some sightseeing.

She agrees to that too, and can’t help hoping they won’t actually have to meet up on Sunday, because she will have just brought him home with her. He’s got an Air BnB, but she can’t help thinking she’s a better prospect.

Saturday afternoon she throws up an article while he’s on the plane, goes for a run in an attempt to calm her nerves, and heads over to the bar once Bellamy texts that he’s on the ground. She arrives way too early, given he still has to deplane and get out of the airport, but it’s not like obsessing at her apartment is helping. She might as well obsess at the bar.

Ten minutes after he tells her he’s on his way, he sits down next to her, offering a sheepish smile that probably would have won her over even if she hadn’t already been mostly won.

“Hey, Clarke.”

His voice is rich and smooth and he has glasses sliding down his nose and the entire effect is just way too much. “Hi. Nice to meet you.”

“Yeah, nice to meet you too.” He looks her up and down, worrying his lip a little. “Just to get it out of the way, uh–can I buy you a drink?”

“You don’t have to buy me a drink,” she says, feeling her own smile start to grow. “You can just flirt with me.”

His grin is honestly one of the best things she’s ever seen in her life. “I was already doing that. I figured I should step it up in person.”

“Feel free,” she says, and he slides his stool closer, smiling.

He cancels the Air BnB the next day.

Bellamy Blake @bellamyblake1New article up, Fifteen Outrageous Reasons to Get Married (You Won’t Believe #7)! Please R&R.

Clarke Griffin @edenclarkeReplying to @bellamyblake1Are you sure that’s where the exclamation point goes? I think we should consult Purdue University

Bellamy Blake @bellamyblake1Replying to @bellamyblake1 @edenclarkeThat’s seriously your question?

Clarke Griffin @edenclarkeReplying to @bellamyblake1 @edenclarkeDefinitely my question, yeah

Clarke Griffin @edenclarkeReplying to @bellamyblake1 @edenclarkeMy answer is yes

#pixiepan

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