I know something you don't know

If you're like me (and you are) you've had this experience: you find out about something, and then you see it everywhere. This is basically how I ended up learning a lot about web writing this week. I kind of oscillate between thinking of it as having learned something about the craft of web writing, and having learned something about why the internet is awful.

There's a certain style of headline writing that's been taking over the internet. I won't hesitate to compare it to a virus or a fungal blight, because even if the underlying idea is solid, the majority of the execution is terrible. You probably already know what I'm talking about: a hyperbolic, emotion-based claim that doesn't so much indicate an article's content as dare you to prove the headline writer a liar by reading the article in it's entirety. "You Won't Believe..." "Inconceivably Awesome..." "...Will Blow Your Mind." If the internet were truly as rich with such content we would all be quivering husks by now, our every assumption about the world shattered and our relentlessly blown minds a thin paste around the interior edges of our skulls.

Someone has taken it on themselves to make a browser plugin, Downworthy (warning: some language in the link), that changes these stock hyperboles into something more believable. "Literally" thus becomes "Figuratively" and "Will Blow Your Mind" becomes "Might Perhaps Mildly Entertain You For a Moment." I don't think I want to install it myself, because if anyone starts writing headlines like that in earnest I want to give them credit, and not mistake them for the work of my cynical plugin. Besides, Downworthy would only externalize what I already do in my head as I read these things. The point is that stumbling on this plugin was among my first steps down the rabbit hole.

Soon after this (or before, I don't remember--reality is confusing) I found the same style lampooned again, on Cracked.com, of all places. The irony here is that for years I had been thinking of this as "Cracked style," and if they didn't pioneer it they were the first place I saw it. Not to be too judgmental--I could forgive this sort of thing from a humor site. It was only when it caught on elsewhere that it actually became objectionable.

The last piece of the puzzle--I didn't think of it as a puzzle until I saw this--fell into place shortly after I found, through wandering internet happenstance, the following tweet:

Dear CNN https://t.co/B0edardjf3 The curiosity gap is not for every news story. Especially about murder.
— Adam Mordecai (@advodude) January 23, 2014

In reference to this tweet:

14-year-old girl stabbed her little sister 40 times, police say. The reason why will shock you. http://t.co/5ZFqHFrviw
— CNN Breaking News (@cnnbrk) January 23, 2014

I took a moment to be suitable appalled about it all. But to the point of this post, I hadn't realized we (and by "we" I mean you, CNN) had sunk so low. And more to the point, I had finally given a name to my pain, and it is "curiosity gap."

A name enabled research. Whose bright idea was this? Well, I'm not being scientific about this, but some Googling indicates that the concept originated in behavioral economics courtesy of George Loewenstein in the mid 90s, and entered the marketing vocabulary (which is to say, metastasized) around 2006. The concept itself is innocent enough: people are curious about what you are going to say when you tell them you know something they don't know, and which they thought was unlikely.

Of course the difference between "informing" and "lying" rests mainly on externalities, what's good for telling the truth is good for lying, too. Conversely, the technique isn't evil in and of itself. Manipulative? Maybe, but not necessarily--surprising information exists. Tired, though? Hells yes. At least the way they're driving it right now.

I do believe that knowing the name of something is a sort of power. Now I (and you, too) can recognize this thing. I can conceptualize it. With the proper precautions I may even summon it someday and make it do my bidding. For good, of course.