YouTube is one of my favourite pastimes. I was just browsing through some videos looking for something interesting to watch. One jumped out at me. It looked a bit like clickbait, but I decided to watch it anyway.
The title was:
Why We Might Use Different Numbers in the Future
In the 12-minute video the first eight minutes were spent looking at various numbering systems used in the past. This wasn’t surprising, because discussing abstract concepts like future numbering systems is hard work on YouTube.
However the thing I took from this YouTube experience is a simple framework for clickable YouTube titles:
Why We Might Use Different [insert noun] in the Future
Here are some examples:
- Why We Might Use Different toilet paper in the Future
- Why We Might Use Different beds in the Future
- Why We Might Use Different musical notation in the Future
- Why We Might Use Different keyboards in the Future
- Why We Might Use Different social media in the Future
The answer is usually, “Well, we might, but most likely not.”
It’s just that small possibility that we might that gets us to click. Is it clickbait? Close, but I’ll give it a “pass”.
It worked on me.
(OK, maybe it wasn’t just the title. Perhaps the thumbnail helped as well.)
Australian Folk Music
Linda's web site