Surely it couldn’t happen here. This is America! But stay with me for a moment: What if scientists concluded that auto history clickbait was bad for your health. Too much exposure to it turns your brain into a gooey mush. So they outlawed the practice.
I will leave it to those with less mushy brains to debate whether such a law would be good or bad. I would instead like to discuss what would be left of web-based auto history if clickbait vanished.
Of course, defining clickbait may be as contentious as deciding what is pornographic. For example, my personal definition is broader than one used in Wikipedia (2022), which places an emphasis on a story teaser that is “deceptive, sensationalized, or otherwise misleading.” That makes sense to me, but I also describe as clickbait stories which entice with a compelling topic but don’t deliver much — if any — new information or insight. The main product tends to be car porn — sultry pictures of automobiles. Our banner photo shows how women can be included as sex objects.
I don’t think that clickbait has to display questionable taste — it merely needs to be vapid. Like those “If you had to pick one. . .” features on the Collectible Automobile Facebook page. Or this Daily Drive feature on a Rambler Marlin ad.
Okay, so what is clearly not auto history clickbait?
Perhaps it would be easiest to come to agreement on what we do not consider to be clickbait. I can think of only one website that has regularly posted auto history articles which are entirely clickbait free — Ate Up With Motor.
Nothing half-assed here — every single story offers indepth analysis. Perhaps just as importantly, publisher and solo writer Aaron Severson doesn’t just rehash the same old war stories that have already been repeated endlessly in other clickbaity histories. He digs much deeper in his research and often challenges industry groupthink. Yet the overall presentation is fairly accessible and engaging (although the format could use some updating).
There’s only one problem with pointing to Ate Up With Motor as a paragon of non-clickbaitery: Severson hasn’t published much new material for a number of years. He has also written about closing down his website (Severson, 2020).
What does this say about the state of auto history?
My theory, which is mine, is that clickbait tends to be the most prominent on websites that depend heavily — if not entirely — on advertising revenue. In a very real sense, more page clicks equal more money. And the best way to generate more page clicks is usually not with a 3,000-word, research-dense story. This is a happy coincidence to auto-media bean counters because indepth research costs more money than slapping together a short, breezy story to go with a clickbaity image.
Also see ‘Wheel spinning happens when car buffs and scholars don’t collaborate’
The flip side of this equation is that auto history websites which rely the most on reader subscriptions and donations tend to have the least amount of clickbait.
The fundamental challenge is that ad-based media make it harder for reader-supported media to survive. This is because readers get so used to the idea of free stuff on the Internet that too few are willing to pay for quality auto history. At least that has been the general pattern over the last few decades.
The times could be changing
One positive sign is the rise of vendors such as Substack, which allow writers to create ad-free, subscription-based websites. Unfortunately, the auto history field has been slow to embrace this approach. For example, Karl Ludvigsen is the only writer I am familiar with who has thus far set up shop at Substack.
I suspect that Severson could have been more financially successful if outfits like Substack had been around when he launched Ate Up With Motor more than a decade ago. Today that kind of a venue could plausibly help him reboot.
Also see ‘How can the auto history field better support small-scale publishing?’
Publishing an auto history website takes a certain intensity of effort, so I could empathize with Severson if he didn’t want to get back onto the treadmill of publishing regularly. I also hope that he feels good about his past efforts, because even if Ate Up With Motor never posted another new article it would still represent a valuable contribution to automotive history.
All of which brings me back to the original question: What if they banned clickbait? My guess is that Ate Up With Motor would be one of the few auto history websites left unscathed. Perhaps then Severson could finally earn a decent living from it.
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RE:SOURCES
- Severson, Aaron; 2020. “Update.” Ate Up With Motor. Posted Feb. 17.
- Wikipedia; 2022. “Clickbait.” Page last modified Jan. 24.
The banner photograph is of our two interns, Ben and Darby, assessing the literary quality of the now-defunct website, Mustang 360 (go here for further discussion).
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