If click bait had a love child with Satan it would look like this...

The other day I was trying to think of a creative way to come up with a decent headline and entertaining story. Something funny, or extreme, or shocking enough that I couldn’t resist reading it.

Like those evil, attention stealing click bait ads that even the most disciplined minds can’t ignore.

What I got was something totally unexpected and extremely satisfying.

Here’s what happened...

I had this idea to come up with a headline first, then a story based on the headline that would somehow tie into a solution for a common problem. Nothing fancy. Just write and see how it unfolds.

So I took a stroll down a dark Google alley and scored some click bait headline generators. Not the purest stuff in town, though.

Something was missing. I needed more. Being the morally corrupt ad junkie that I am...always chasing the next high. So I ventured on.

That’s when it hit me. I remembered this addictively entertaining and highly offensive adult party game endorsed by Satan himself. Maybe you’ve heard of it. Cards Against Humanity?

For the uninitiated, playing it is like joining a support group for assholes anonymous. But when you go to the meeting, you’re relieved to find out they don’t give a shit about recovery. They just encourage you to indulge your addiction to perversion and political incorrectness.

And that’s what I did. Once again Google didn’t disappoint either. I said, “Give me the good stuff...a Cards Against Humanity generator,” and that’s exactly what I got. Google can score anything.

Here’s where the fun starts. I clicked a button that generated one ridiculous phrase after another until I got one that was laugh out loud funny. Then I took the phrase from the white card on the CAH website and put it into the click bait generator. Traditionally, players ask a question from a black card, and everyone else answers with their funniest white card.

I clicked the “Generate” button a few times until I actually LOL’d again (yes, I’m easily amused, but this shit was so much fun I almost forgot why I was doing it in the first place). Then I copied and pasted my favorite 3 clickbait headlines to the document I had open on my laptop and got to work writing this piece about how to create a headline followed by a story based on that headline.

The weird part is that my original white card phrase and clickbait headlines aren’t what I ended up using for this story.

Somewhere along the way I decided to change it up a bit. The original phrase was “being awesome at sex” and I was going to choose from one of the following 3 headlines:

· 6 bits of being awesome at sex advice that will land you in prison
· The disturbing origins of being awesome at sex
· Why being awesome at sex sucks: myth vs. reality

I didn’t put too much thought into what I was doing. It was just an experimental exercise. Use the new tools I found online to generate some goofy content and GO. That’s it. What ended up happening is something that takes place when you stop analyzing and take action.

You come up with something unique and useful. I learned that the best opportunities don’t always present themselves right away, or when you’re looking too hard for them. They often appear during the process. After you take off. When you least expect it.

In this case the headline changed because I picked a new phrase, “click bait” instead of “being awesome at sex” because it just made sense to me. But not until after I started writing. Weird? Maybe. But definitely cool. Maybe weird is the new cool. Feel free to use that. You can thank me later.

And here’s today’s lesson, kids. The moral of the story, if you will, which is...

When you get stuck trying to think of ideas to write about, just have fun and write because your best work comes from doing the work. That’s why you always hear people say take action. I don’t know how it works, but I know it works. That’s the solution to the problem.

Remember. Don’t put too much thought into it. Enjoy the process and correct as you go. Then go back and edit if you need to or read things over to make sure what you wrote makes sense. At least that’s what I do.

In the future. Whenever you need an attention stealing headline. A headline that spawns a quick and entertaining story you can feed to dopamine fiends like me...try this fiendishly fun game I call Click Bait Ads Against Humanity.

It’s evil. It’s fun. And it just might work.

But if it doesn’t, you can just hire someone like me to do the work for you. Not because I’m a good person. Because it supports my writing habit. ;-)