Are You a Clickbait Genius?

October 15, 2021 10:05 AM

Are You a Clickbait Genius?
I took headline A/B tests from Upworthy’s real data and turned them into a challenging quiz.

The Upworthy Research Archive covers headline and thumbnail tests the viral video site did from 2013-2015. I picked out a set of 50 suitable tests that vary only by headline.

Role: creator

posted by malevolent (7 comments total)

81%

I guess I did OK.

This was fun.
posted by kathrynm at 5:51 PM on October 15, 2021

I picked the worst one 3 times and the best one two times and was given an 89% score, which taught me something more interesting than any of the headlines.
posted by straight at 6:31 AM on October 16, 2021

(...and was labeled a Clickbate Pro. How high does your score have to be to become a Master Clickbaiter?)
posted by straight at 6:33 AM on October 16, 2021

This was fun, but I was terrible at it.
posted by Orlop at 3:37 PM on October 17, 2021

Great idea, well executed! I was not good at this. I tried two strategies. First, “which headline makes me unreasonably angry at the author?” And that got me labeled mediocre. Then, I switched to which one I would be most likely to wonder what they’re actually talking about, and I did way worse.
posted by skewed at 7:25 PM on October 23, 2021

92.5
I oughta get a job in marketing.
posted by TheCoug at 1:46 PM on October 29, 2021

I am absolutely terrible at it (59.5%).
posted by Peach at 2:07 PM on November 8, 2021