This Space Reserved for Filthy Lies

If I am to judge by current internet standards, then I fail at the art of the link-grabbing, punch-you-in-the-gut headline writing. My archaic idea of a good headline is one that at least makes a passing attempt to be clever or accurate or ethical. This is, of course, wrong and stupid.

Even that headline right up there at the top of this story -- dull, dull, dull. I already realize that what I should have written was something like: How Headlines Can Get You a Date With Katy Perry; Have Headlines Hacked Your Computer / Stolen Your Bank Info? ; or Top Ten Tips for Maximizing Your Blog’s Ad Revenue!

According to several studies I am literally making up right now, but that definitely sound like things I have heard before, people spend less than 4 seconds deciding if they will read a given page on the internet. Our own site analytics actually bear this out. As a reader to our site, you have either spent fifteen minutes tooling about searching for the toenail porn -- an actual search term from our database -- you apparently are certain is here somewhere, or you left before I ever got around to talking about stabbing Google spiders in the eyes, which is a shame because that part is coming up, and I think would have quite liked it.

I mean, talk about quick to judgment — I haven’t even gotten to the bump yet.

Oh, there it is.

Even a casual jaunt through the sideshow barker landscape of current gaming blogs reveals that headlines are expected to live up to some critical mass for arbitrary search term density, so that when Google’s matrix-like spiders crawl into our domain, they are immediately set upon by a cadre of crazy-eyed, knife-wielding adjectives. We then send back their multi-faceted eyes one at a time until we get our demands of first-page placement and a nice fancy page rank.

Instead my sedate headlines kind of lounge on the porch with their feet up on the railing, only dimly aware of Google's wary tech as it wanders nervously past.

I have some pretty old fashioned ideas about headlines I suppose. Among them that:

1) They should try to be inventive
2) They should be accurate
3) They should not be outright lies
4) They should not break any of the Geneva Conventions

It’s not that I don’t understand the temptation to play with headlines. Nice thing about bending word pictures to your will is that you don’t even have to use Photoshop. You just cherry-pick an issue, particularly one on which people will expound at length without the burden of knowledge or insight, assign a villain, preferably a corporate one, to carry the mantle of evil-doer and then sarcastically condense whatever content follows down to the best sound bite.

And, the reality is, they get results. Particularly as we run up on the coming E3, where everyone is basically disseminating the same information, there are two ways you can get eyes on pages. One way is to do serious work to build a unique perspective on the information. The other option is to slap in some bombastic slant of artificial nonsense to attract undeserved attention — what I affectionately term the Kardashian approach.

Now, don’t let me over state the case here, because I fear that I am implying that every other site out there is abusing those great big colorful words at the top of their articles with every single article they write. In reality most of the time, what little news that can be gathered is so well and accurately summed up by a half dozen words anyway, that one wonders why further expounding is even necessary. For example, Monkey Space Ninja Gun Battle 2 Demo Now Available on Xbox Live, feels to me like a pretty complete thought. To find that someone has further invested the time and effort to Photoshop a monkey’s face onto a screenshot from Ninja Gaiden followed by 200 words on the relative awesomeness of monkeys, ninjas and/or guns can feel a bit like overkill.

I like to imagine that these are the "duck, duck, duck" headlines to the inevitable coming "goose!" Reading the daily gaming news, I find myself genuinely waiting for that glorious linguistic kick to the head.

Dead Horse Games Announces Revenue up 14.5% in 2nd Quarter — Dull
New Logo for Criss-Cross Applesauce RPG Edition Revealed — Who cares
Gran Turismo 5 Delayed — Duh
Draconian DRM Policy Stabs Infant in Face — Wait! What?!

Tell me, which article are you clicking on? No, seriously? How can you not click that link? Logically I know that I'm being completely manipulated, and that more than likely the headline is so misleading that the Donner party would have followed it into the mountains, but where does the willpower come from not to click that? And, that's to say nothing about the bastardization the article will further endure in the tall weeds of a place like Digg.

I have learned from years of experience that should Jack Thompson, Ubisoft or the issue of piracy become briefly newsworthy -- a term I use with loosest possible interpretation -- I should get some popcorn before reading through a swath of ever increasingly inventive headlines. In fact, I look forward to it. I wish now that I had collected my favorites, particularly the ones where the article ended up saying the exact opposite of what the headline inferred, because that kind of hubris is more worth seeing than the Scott Pilgrim Vs. The World trailer.

It’s a hard world out there, people, and much as I want to build some kind of ire toward those who succeed on the backs of deceptive or slanted headlines, I just can’t. I kind of love them, actually. It’s supposed to be an entertaining biz, and when I am covertly browsing the web at work, what I want is to get that electric thrill from a headline whose transitory promise can never be truly fulfilled. I want to see ordinary things portrayed as extraordinary, even if for an illusory moment before the magic is dispelled.

So, here’s to you Deceptive Video Games Headlines Writer. May your thesaurus always be handy, and your capacity for hyperbole runneth ever over.

Comments

Simmer down, big boy.

Your point is well made.

more than likely the headline is so misleading that the Donner party would have followed it into the mountains

That's brilliant.

I, too, don't have a knack for good, punchy headlines. Mine all end up sounding like masters theses by exceptionally bland students.

Incidentally, I clicked through to your article because of the headline.

Some of "those" sites also like to couple their bombastic headlines with a thumbnail picture of bikini-clad women - which generally have little to do with the article. I avoid these articles and sites on principle. If I'm looking for scantily clad women on the internet, I'm pretty sure I know where to look.

This is why I seek out sites like this one and stick with them.

Oh man, there are so many little gems in this piece.
A work of beauty sir.

Nice article, Elysium.... and did i detect a nod toward our pervert overlords there?

I suggest you don't go to The Huffington Post because your head will asplode.

Elysium wrote:

1) They should try to be inventive
2) They should be accurate
3) They should not be outright lies
4) They should not break any of the Geneva Conventions

Those are pretty good rules, especially the accuracy part.

I was able to get the word "bazooka" in a headline this week without violating any. Yes, it's possible to be accurate and catchy in eight short words.

Elysium wrote:

Draconian DRM Policy Maker Stabs Infant in Face

The revised version would be a perfectly good headline. I'd take out "Draconian" if it was a straight news story, though.

I watched that whole video waiting to see an infant to get stabbed.

You should watch it again. You may have missed it.

Quintin_Stone wrote:

I watched that whole video waiting to see an infant to get stabbed.

This is pretty much how I picture you spending most of your days.

Most game web sites are pure yellow journalism. Just look at what happened with CliffyB recently, an interviewer misattributed a line about Japan falling behind technically as coming from him, and next thing you know stories like this one are popping up all over the place. Or you can look at Tom Chick's awesome bit about Matt Damon being the target of choice.

That Tom Chick article is illuminating.

Elysium wrote:

So, here’s to you Deceptive Video Games Headlines Writer.

Someone should make a Real Men of Genius for that.

I generally resist the urge to click on bombastic headlines by remembering that the last hundred times I did it, I was rewarded with pointless drivel.

These days, I don't click on headlines anymore, since any article attached to them likely is orders of magnitude less informative on a word count basis than just the headline itself.

I can tell you one thing, the amount of searches for toenail porn is going to increase dramatically.

Quintin_Stone wrote:

I watched that whole video waiting to see an infant to get stabbed.

I saw it. Fifth time through it was so obvious.

And congratulations everyone, GWJ is now the number 1 Google result for "toenail porn"

IMAGE(http://home.earthlink.net/~tanstaafl/gwjtoenail.jpg)

Elysium, your writing reminds me a lot of Dave Barry. I mean that as a sincere compliment.

However, I am disappointed that you missed the question mark as one of the most important tools of the bombastic headline trade. That you can make any absurd claim you like, as long as it's hidden behind that innocuous little eroteme. "Senator Dullard: Seal Clubber" is obviously insane, but "Senator Dullard: Seal Clubber?" allows the writer to get away with insinuating just that in the article without actually having to stand behind their facts. Used more often in the political arena than anywhere else, but I've seen it enough times in the video game world to make me nervous.

Elysium wrote:

article

tl;dr

Psych wrote:
Quintin_Stone wrote:

I watched that whole video waiting to see an infant to get stabbed.

I saw it. Fifth time through it was so obvious.

I've watche di t 12 times. 12 timm. i feeel funny

Minarchist wrote:

Elysium, your writing reminds me a lot of Dave Barry. I mean that as a sincere compliment.

However, I am disappointed that you missed the question mark as one of the most important tools of the bombastic headline trade. That you can make any absurd claim you like, as long as it's hidden behind that innocuous little eroteme. "Senator Dullard: Seal Clubber" is obviously insane, but "Senator Dullard: Seal Clubber?" allows the writer to get away with insinuating just that in the article without actually having to stand behind their facts. Used more often in the political arena than anywhere else, but I've seen it enough times in the video game world to make me nervous.

I think The Daily Show has covered this pretty effectively already, probably why Elysium didn't bother--and the ? doesn't appear so much in gaming story headlines--or does it?

I wonder how much of the headline deception is for SEO purposes, and how much is just good ol' wannabe muckrackin' yeller journalism.

Chairman_Mao wrote:

I wonder how much of the headline deception is for SEO purposes, and how much is just good ol' wannabe muckrackin' yeller journalism.

I would say 50/50.

And congratulations everyone, GWJ is now the number 1 Google result for "toenail porn"

Let's all appreciate for a moment that 860,000 results turned up for that search!

Awww, you give yourself too little credit, Mr. Sands. With recent head-turners like "The Unquenchable Thirst for New Games," "Ordinary Average Guy," and "Outside Looking In" I really feel that your grasp on the sensational is maturing.

Elysium wrote:
And congratulations everyone, GWJ is now the number 1 Google result for "toenail porn"

Let's all appreciate for a moment that 860,000 results turned up for that search!

And you were number 1 baby.

I wonder what the image results are. I'm not curious enough to check though.

MrDeVil909 wrote:
Elysium wrote:
And congratulations everyone, GWJ is now the number 1 Google result for "toenail porn"

Let's all appreciate for a moment that 860,000 results turned up for that search!

And you were number 1 baby.

I wonder what the image results are. I'm not curious enough to check though.

As soon as you said that, I thought to myself "What a excellent question, I wonder...." Then I had to hold back my stomach contents. I think I will let someone else check.

I like to imagine that these are the "duck, duck, duck" headlines to the inevitable coming "goose!"

What about "gray duck?" Where's the Minnesota pride?

Excellent article, notwithstanding the "gray duck" error. I appreciate GWJ as a source of gaming news and commentary that doesn't give over to sensationalism, though I never realized it was also such a good place for toenail porn.

I clicked on your article by accident. Just thought you should know

What's scary is this phenomenon is not limited to entertainment sites but also to important news sites. My wife is a web editor for the local paper. She's told me the most popular stories by far are ones that have either a titillating sex angle or gross-out factor. Examples include a gang banger who stuffed a gun down the front of his pants and accidentally shot a testicle off. There's also the bikini barista stand where the girls allegedly offered blow jobs along with your daily latte. And of course a few years back we had a guy die from a perforated colon while having sex with a horse. I'll let you do the math on that one.

Nevermind that the local city and county are facing massive budget deficits, or that some local schools are failing, or that local soldiers are dying in Afghanistan. Boring!

jdzappa wrote:

There's also the bikini barista stand where the girls allegedly offered blow jobs along with your daily latte.

Whoa, whoa. Hold on a second. You said this was a local story? Where is local, exactly? I ask for purely academic reasons, of course.