Official language English | ||
Motto "Because all content deserves to go viral." Founded June 12, 2014; 2 years ago (2014-06-12) Purpose To mock content shared on media sites. | ||
ClickHole (temporarily known as Cruft) is a satirical website from The Onion that parodies websites such as BuzzFeed and Upworthy. The clickbait parody site was launched on June 12, 2014. The creation of ClickHole comes in conjunction with The Onion's decision to stop its print edition, as the journal shifts its focus more toward the internet. According to ClickHole's senior editor, Jermaine Affonso, the website "is The Onion's response to click-bait content" and serves as "a parody of online media". Critics noted that, on a deeper level, ClickHole illustrates the shallow nature of content that is shared on social media as well as the desperation of media sites to share such content.
Contents
On February 23, 2017, ClickHole changed its name to Cruft. On February 24th, 2017 Clickhole changed its name from 'Cruft' back to Clickhole with no explanation offered.
Aim
ClickHole aims to mock content posted on media sites, using satire, and tries to make its content sharable. According to its website, ClickHole wants "to make sure that all of [its] content panders to and misleads [its] readers just enough to make it go viral". In most of its posts, ClickHole tries to convey an underlying message, usually poking fun at social media users or societal behaviors. Despite the website's satirical intentions, ClickHole wants audience members to interpret its content as tongue-in-cheek.
The website aims to publish content frequently, setting a target of 7–10 new posts daily.
Content
ClickHole publishes content in the form of articles, videos, quizzes, blogs, slideshows, and features.
Since being founded in June 2014, ClickHole has published parodies of nostalgic content, advice, motivational quotes, sport analysis, life hacks, fashion, and think-pieces (all of which mimic the style and tone of content posted by media sites such as Buzzfeed and Upworthy). Another popular feature is "oral histories" of TV shows, websites, and other usually very recent pop culture phenomena.
The ClickHole team meets frequently to brainstorm about new ideas and topics that can be written about. The team uses social media feeds as inspiration for topics to satirize, based on the clickbait that is shared most often. ClickHole ensures that its employees put detail into how each topic should be addressed from a satirical point of view, so that its ideas are conveyed successfully. It also was revealed that the team is still at a stage where it is experimenting with ideas to see what is best received by its audience.
Content posted on ClickHole also is shared on social media platforms such as Facebook, YouTube, Instagram, Twitter, Tumblr, and Pinterest.
Reception
Within the first week of release, some readers criticized ClickHole for what they saw as a lack of originality. It was accused of using Upworthy, The Huffington Post and Buzzfeed for inspiration for its headlines, slideshows, and quizzes respectively. One hundred days after its launch, however, the site garnered high praise from bloggers and readers of The Onion, with 36% percent web traffic generated via sharing on Facebook. Now the format established by Clickhole is being emulated by some campus satirical newspapers, such as The Michigan Every Three Weekly and The Georgetown Heckler with their spin-off.
Various writers predicted that the website will be a long-term success because its content has consistently been creative and targets a wide audience. They assumed this to be the case as long as ClickHole's audience understand that the website parodies clickbait, and is not clickbait in itself.
Celebrity recognition
One instance where the website gained some popularity was when actor-director George Takei mentioned the website on his official Facebook account after the ClickHole team published an article dedicated to him ("10 Things We Hope George Takei Likes Enough To Share This List") and repeatedly tried to contact the actor through social media. In another instance, the Facebook account of Robert Downey, Jr. posted a link to the article "What Robert Downey Jr. Would Look Like Today," which had the satirical premise of the actor having died several years ago and stating, "I always try to defy expectations."
After falling for a fake quote attributed to him on ClickHole, Anderson Cooper dedicated the "Ridiculist" segment of the May 20, 2015, episode of Anderson Cooper 360° to the website.
Controversy
Many users of social media have taken ClickHole articles to be literal (especially those addressing controversial topics), and have expressed their anger and confusion online.
There also has been confusion regarding what ClickHole is trying to achieve with its satire; an article in The Guardian said that it was unclear whether ClickHole is "a satire of clickbait, or good satire done as clickbait".