The is the most egregiously clickbait title I've ever run across.
One of my favorite titles is "Reefer Madness", which is about refrigerated shipping containers – a.k.a. reefers.
I get that clarity can be a goal, but it’s not the only goal worth achieving. Clear and unambiguous titles aren’t some self-evidently true virtue, especially not in a medium like podcasts, especially not with a podcast like 99PI that’s very much about storytelling.
I do agree that for the medium of Hacker News ambiguous titles aren’t optimal, but 99PI has not special obligation to optimize its titles for Hacker News. Here I would rather have Hacker News adapt the title than wanting 99PI to change it.
I dislike the “clickbait” accusation very much. It’s so lazy. “Clickbait” is really not the only reason that can lead to ambiguous titles, far from it.
Also, I enjoy ambiguous and creative titles, especially from someone I already trust to put out great content (like 99PI). Under those circumstances I honestly fail to see the problem and if there is a problem then it’s that the title isn’t optimal in circumstances where clarity is a virtue, but under those circumstances it seems better to just manually adjust the title or to add a little abstract instead of wanting 99PI to change.
The titles for 99PI are done in a way where your expectations are set up one way, with all the baggage the title implies, and they then turn it around on you. I feel like when they do it well, like the Reefer Madness episode, it expands your understanding of the world. One, by expanding your understanding of what a Reefer is, but it also expands upon a topic that you probably had no interest in so that you now will understand the madness that concerns reefers.
But it leads to more clicks, doesn't it? You're saying that they don't have that intention?
There are more than one ways to view this. Also, to me something is not clickbait if the actual content might be different from what I expected, but just as interesting or maybe even more interesting.
And that differs from clickbait how?
> Clickbait is a pejorative term describing web content that is aimed at generating online advertising revenue, especially at the expense of quality or accuracy, relying on sensationalist headlines to attract click-throughs and to encourage forwarding of the material over online social networks.
Is this article low-quality or inaccurate? (No.) Is the headline sensationalist? (No. A silly pun in not sensationalist.) Is this title designed to get you to send it on Facebook? (Maybe? This is kind of a weak criteria since most authors would like you to share their work.)
The entire point of a title is to catch your interest. Having a good title alone isn't clickbait. The fact that you missed a pun doesn't make this clickbait.