I recently was drawn to Veritasium after many years - I think the last time I watched a video from him was while I was an undergraduate in Peru.
Maybe the reason why Veritasium was drawn to my attention was because of Derek's doing. It turns out that he has been experimenting with clickbaiting. In my own words, clickbaiting is the purposeful choice of the title and preview of a Youtube video to attract the attention of wandering viewers doomscrolling around on Youtube. I think it probably extends beyond Youtube as well.
But I am not writing this post to tell you the whereabouts of Derek, but to write about a thought that crossed my mind after he demonstrated scientifically that clickbaiting will boost the number of people reaching your content to the number of millions. See his video here. In the linked video he elaborates the different definitions of clickbaiting and the boundary between moral and immoral.
After watching his video I got all excited about learning a method to open up the possibility of people accessing more of the information I have created. I am not talking about these blog posts, but to my pieces of work that took years, like the scientific articles I published during my Ph.D. Or the very cool guide on how to apply to a Ph.D. in the U.S.A I wrote at the end of my undergraduate.
Right after watching some of clickbaiting ideas being lay down, I realized where I came from. During my Ph.D. training, exploring the boundary of putting a catchy title so other scientists will look into our abstract was not up for discussion. We try our best to draw the readers' attention in but with thruthfullness. But, as argued by Derek, if all the content is scientifically right and it is worth other's scientists' time, why then not just use some concepts of clickbaiting?
These thoughts would make my adviser grind his teeth. I don't think the scientific community will go into clickbaiting any time soon. Nevertheless, Derek's video is another nudge for me to rethink my conception of how the world works, some other parts of worlds from the ones I came from.