Photo Credit: Ben Brown
All of us have seen the headlines:
“Man finds literally the most amazing thing ever in his attic. Find out what!”
We all know perfectly well that this will not lead to any amazing thing at all, but just yet another filler story designed to get us to read the five thousand advertisements jammed into the fifteen individual pages that make up the “story” on some website out there. It’s frustrating, unavoidable, and – because there occasionally IS an interesting story on the other end of the link – something we do even though we know it won’t end well.
Like going on blind dates.
For those who don’t know, LinkBait is the pseudo-technical term for using sensational language designed to get people to click on an otherwise boring story just to get their eyeballs glued to dozens of ads. While helping with the blind dating situation is a bit out of my wheel-house, there is something you can do to make the LinkBait crisis a little less annoying.
Alison – a.k.a. Snipeyhead or just Snipe – has created a browser plug-in that will change the sensational into the hilarious. While the plug-in can’t totally remove LinkBait from the net, it can make dealing with it significantly more humorous and more fun to deal with. In short, the plug-in replaces words like “literally” and “most amazing” into other words like “figuratively” and “boring.” You’ve no doubt seen this done with other plugins that replace single words with other words (*cough* CloudToButt *cough*) but this one has a much broader library of specifically LinkBait-ey words to bring a little more laughter to your otherwise maddening net-surfing experience.
Give it a go at downworthy.snipe.net – and send @snipeyhead a thank you. She’s made it freely available for anyone to use and remix, and I think we can all be AMAZINGLY thankful for her Literally changing every Incredible One Weird Trick that can Go Viral as it blows your mind in a way You Won’t Believe.
Go ahead, grab the plug-in and then re-read that last bit with it on and off.
You’re welcome.