Shifting headlines & ever-wasserism
Over at The Awl, Choire Sicha has an interesting little piece on how headlines have changed in the last few years. The gist:
Here’s a flashback. In 2007, a popular video of a baby getting dropkicked by a breakdancer (hard to believe I just typed that) was headlined “Times Square Still Extremely Unsafe for Children” on Gawker, which is pretty so-so as a headline but still funny. There’s no way that would get that headline now. (“Breakdancing in Times Square – Baby goes flying!” was the YouTube video headline.) “Watch This Baby Get Drop-Kicked By a Subway Breakdancer” is what I’d predict for our age. You have to really tell the folks on Twitter what’s happening for your clicks ‘n’ shares, you see.
It’s an interesting capture, and clearly a result of the shift of social as a traffic driver. It also feels a lot like what was written as we shifted to SEO’ed headlines, but maybe that’s just the ever-wasser in me talking.