Welch: Want to go places? Just tap that clickbait

Clickbait.     

        See a worm on a fishing hook and a perch looking at it hungrily as the handle on the reel makes a slight click? That’s what I see and hear. Just a faint click.  

        Chances are you’re savvier than I and know the real meaning of “clickbait.” I learned it only recently.

        My husband (who taught me the word) is a non-clicker. I’m a non-clicker too. No way are we going to take the online bait and be lured to who-knows-where by actually clicking on those enticing stories and intriguing images that pop up on Facebook. Clickbait. We’re above it.

        Except sometimes I click.

        How did we waste time before Facebook? I really don’t remember.

        Anyway, here’s trivia you don’t need to know:

        The term was invented in December 2006 by Jay Geiger. He wrote “click bait” in a blogpost. Yes, originally it was two words. My source:  grammarist.com. Whoever they are.

        You can look up Jay Geiger and find the blogpost with this sentence:

        “Most likely you came here from here from Digg.com. Thank you for partaking in our ‘Reverse Psychology’, ‘Click Bait’ experiment.”

        Dig a little deeper and you might discover that Digg invented the term. Or not. I tried digging deeper and got bogged down in Digg.

        Meanwhile, my research let me know Geiger didn’t have my high school English teacher. In the excerpt above, you’ll see an ill-placed quotation mark. If you go to his posts, you’ll also find a run-on sentence and some other offenses. Do a Geiger count.

        All this to say you don’t have to be perfect to get credit for inventing a word, whether or not you really invented it. Sometimes Internet entities are careless with the truth. Sometimes people like me repeat suspect information. Sorry.

        My original topic was meant to be “foodscaping.” The fact that spellcheck doesn’t recognize the word tells me we’re looking at the leading edge of a trend.

        Clickbait labeled FOODSCAPING presented me with a colorful aerial view of an urban neighborhood. Azure swimming pools were conspicuous in their absence. The scene was mostly vegetation, rooftops and streets.  

        Better a garden than a pool. Right? Unless your house catches on fire.

        Anyway, the enticing foodscaping caption made me want to click on the picture to learn more, but it somehow got away from me. The gist of foodscaping, apparently, is that an ideal situation exists when people plant gardens and fruit trees and exchange what they grow with neighbors.

        We used to just call it planting an orchard and a garden and sharing. I grew up with rural foodscaping – lots of room to grow stuff but fewer neighbors close by. You can what you can and take the rest to church.

        I could be feeling warmhearted thinking about our one bumper turnip crop and those peach trees I climbed. Instead, I’m feeling skeptical. I see a foodscaping graphic artist using Photoshop to replace swimming pools with gardens.

        No problem. Clickbait done well helps me practice my skepticism.