A Click-bait Article on How To Avoid Click-bait Articles on Medium dot com

This post is so going viral!

This post will be literary cheese to mice, shoes to Kim Kardashian, lies to Trump!

I’ll receive the Bloomberg bankroll equivalent in Medium.com royalties for this baby, and I won’t even feel guilty about bilking the site readership of their hard-earned nickels and dimes while I shove meaningless tripe down their figurative throats to infect their struggling minds. Nope. Not at all… as I apply another coat of $100 Holt Renfrew lipstick to my smarmy smile-plastered lips.

People will be talking at water coolers the globe over about this awesome, never-before-thunked Medium.com post, my verbiage being compared to that of Chaucer, Frost and Keats.

And I will finally become one of the golden people, lunching with Gates and Bezos and Oprah. The triad-trillionaires asking for my advice. Yes, Siree, Bob. It’ll happen. Just because you clicked my useless click-bait. Who’s the dupe now?

(Oops. Did I type that out loud?)

*ahem*……………….

………………..*cough*

~~~

This post will have everything you need to avoid posts like this.

You can throw away all the other “How To” Medium.com posts in your To Read pile and just save and share this one — mine, all mine. It’ll be that good.

Let’s begin, shall we? Sure. Why not. My holding company Cayman Islands bank account is up and running…

Unadulterated Listicle pic courtesy CopyPress/ Title pic courtesy Roundpeg

№1 — Do NOT — I repeat, do not under ANY circumstances — click on ANY listicle article on Medium.com, especially any with SEVEN pointers (this pointer will probably get me flagged on Medium.com but there’s no profit without risk). All such posts are the same, no matter the work, sleep, weight-loss, love topic. They will list the obvious to anyone with more than one brain cell, only remind you of what you should be doing but are diligently avoiding, and be forgotten the moment you finish the last sentence. No, really. Seriously. The moment you X out this post, you’ll forget it. Shush up! Listen to me! I’m telling you you’ll forget it!

№2 — Do NOT under any circumstance comment on click-bait articles. You’re making me… uh… click-bait article writers stinking rich, so you’re reinforcing their impetus to write MORE click-bait articles. It’s a self-feeding cycle of drab post doom and diminishing royalty dollar returns for you and your worth while articles. Don’t do it, not even to say, “This post is dumb. I hate you for wasting my time!” Just don’t. Can’t you hear their royalty cash machine ka-chinging? I can. (It’s my own Medium.com cash register ka-chinging. That’s why I can hear it.)

Courtesy Gapingvoid

№3 — Do not read any of the articles listed in the Medium.com Weekly Digest (this pointer will also get me flagged. The chances of you actually reading this post are nil to none now…sigh… I’m such a loud-mouthed dolt! Why couldn’t I just shut the heck up and go with the Medium.com Pablum-boring listicle click-bait flow? Why? *banging my head on my Bellevue Hospital bed table*) Sure, there “could be” a valuable nugget or two in those FIVE FRICKEN HOURS you just wasted Friday afternoon reading every post to make sure you aren’t socially, culturally, psychologically, financially behind… but while you were doing that, off this post’s royalties I hired a personal trainer and lost 200 lbs at the gym, hired Oprah’s personal chef and moved to the Cayman Islands where instead of reading the Medium.com Weekly Digest I swim in my own private lagoon, having morphed into a Bo Derek “Ten” with no need to keep up with the online Jones's, enabling a perfect night’s sleep. Ahhh…….

Courtesy Giphy

№4 — Don’t be so needy. Inherently, you’re not needy. You’re fine. Seriously. You’re totally fine. Your hair, your body, your tech skills, your eating and sleep habits and your exercise routine… all fine. You didn’t join Medium.com to be convinced you’re not fine. You joined Medium.com to be informed about real, important issues. If you needed to feel bad about yourself, you could have bought a subscription to Vogue or G.Q. or a similar confidence-squelching mag. You didn’t. You’re smart. You chose Medium.com because smart, confident people are over here exchanging smart, confident information you’re missing out on because you chose to click this click-bait article.

№5 — Stop looking at the article minute length at the top of each Medium.com article. Listen, I see you doing that. You pick the shortest ones. You figure you can down more short articles and have a better chance of knowing something important with your Napalm carpet-bombing technique. You were wrong. You are wrong. Pick the most intelligent sounding articles to read, on difficult stuff you haven’t got a clue about. I follow some genius astrophysicist guy on Medium.com, and yet my university counselor said that if I didn’t drop Astronomy after the first year I would embarrass myself and all of humanity by getting the world’s first grade lower than an F. Hey, I’m learning real important stuff from this brainy star-stalking dude, and sometimes I even comment, and sometimes fellow commentators on his article don’t even laugh at me, and the genius guy even ended up following me! (Listen, I don’t know why. I figure the click-bait articles bored him. There can be zero other reason. I’m not that smart.)

№6 — Search out major, dignified organizations on Medium.com to follow. Big ones like the U.S. Defense Department or some Washington DC high-brow Geo-political think tank. Soak in their verbiage with words like “interregnum” and “efficacy.” Have a dictionary at the ready and take notes on all the Intel they spew, then spew it back to your co-workers at the office water cooler… using the words, interregnum and efficacy, a lot. Warning: don’t ask questions of these experts in the Comment section though. Quietly nod a lot and type things like, “Bravo” or “stats show your hypothesis to be correct. I am in accordance.” — stuff like that. Smart people will follow you back, and soon you’ll be festooned with smart articles in your feed having zilch to do with click-bait or viral needy anything. Your brain will grow. Your body will shrink (you stop eating junk food when you’re no longer needy). Your own articles will morph, taking on real important issues, informing well, entertaining well, obtaining high-caliber comments along the way. Next thing you know, the U.S. Department of Defense is following you! Hey, stuff like that happens all the time.

№7 — Don’t Follow people to get more Followers on Medium. com — if all you’ve been reading are click-bait listicles like this one, what could you possibly write of any worth in your own click-bait articles for your Followers to read and appreciate? Seriously. I’m going out on a limb here and saying zilch. Your head is full of Medium.com click-bait article mush. You need a mushectomy. I follow a genius guy on Medium.com who is a mushectomy surgeon. I can forward you his link if you’d like. He has 3,457,322 Followers. He follows no one on Medium.com. To date, he’s written 4,097, 7-point listicle click-bait articles. He’s my neighbor in the Cayman Islands. He’s the one who gave me advice on how to set up a tax-free holding company for my Medium.com royalties. Great guy. Lovely wife. Adorable children.

There you have it. Everything you ever needed to know about how not to click click-bait articles on Medium.com.

I bet you feel totally satisfied. Your brain full to the brim. Your waist down three dress sizes. Your skin dewy soft and your sleep routine a coma patient could be proud to call his own.

You’re welcome.

Hey, could you pass me the suntan lotion? My Bo Derek skin is burning. Thanks.

*ka-ching!*