I saw a clickbait video for Kendrick Lamar’s Pop Out concert explaining why that moment matters.
Then I thought to myself, if you really need to explain why this matters, to a vast audience, maybe it’s fair to say those folk are not like us.
This isn’t to claim that online articles don’t create change, they have the capacity for it.
I question if adding “Why this matters” or something similar is anything more than engagement clickbait.
Most well written articles explain why they matter without saying they matter
If the reason for why your article matters isn’t clearly explained in the title, chances are it wasn’t a strong title.
I used Perplexity AI to find some article names, of influential articles, that included this verbiage in their title. It gave me 3 pretty irrelevant results, but I did find this article from Columbia.edu titled, Climate Education In The U.S.: Where It Stands, And Why It Matters.
This is a nifty article breaking down how teaching kids about climate change will make them more climate conscious for life.
While that is true, nothing in this article really drove home the “Why this matters” promise.
Okay, technically they did explain why it matters but so does every article that stays on theme
My article has the goal of explaining why I think it matters that this title scheme falsely inflates importance.
Yes it matters that we teach climate change to people in school. However, in the scale of problems and things that matter, the absolute waste of corporations around the world feels like it matters more. While standardized climate education isn’t in the USA, only 76% of States mandate safe sex education.
The issue may be one of American Conservative States, most young people appear to be educated on climate change, at least in the business centers of the USA.
Still the promise of explaining why it mattered was not met in my humble opinion.
It makes me not care as much about the article or it’s content
There was no revelation in that climate change article.
The US government’s political system prevents standardized education.
This is important because the more young people are educated on a topic, the more they adopt better habits.
This is all regular stuff.
I’m sure the authour felt they were about to levy a haymaker with this paper, but in the grand scheme of things, it only lived up to half of its title, a report on the state of education in the USA.
That authour did not convince me why every US kid knowing about climate change actually matters in the big picture.
There is a deeper implication that the authour is unlocking some secret to the reader
When this style of article title is used, it implies this deeper level of expertise.
In all fairness to the Columbia writer, they did tackle a real topic and using clickbait is fair game. They wanted clicks, they probably got them. It’s lazy writing but I’m doing the same thing here.
It bothers me when it’s a matter of culture, and the people telling the story don’t fully know what they mean.
Sure, the Kendrick Lamar show is a big moment, but the video just added context for what Kendrick did at the show.
It high key came off like, hey White folk, here’s the Easter Eggs that Kendrick dropped to add flavour.
Explaining the state of something is not explaining why it matters
Both the video on Kendrick and the article on climate change offer an update onto what has happened.
They provide some analysis on what they feel is significant. Neither piece of content actually expressed the importance of their analysis. They failed to make it connect beyond what ChatGPT could do with enough information.
Explaining why it matters should have some level of impact discussed.
Otherwise it’s just another fluffy piece of nothing.
Live Long and Prosper Everyone