Linkbait existed before the Internet (*)

I feel I am reading a lot more link-baitish content on the web these days, from the obvious to the not-so-obvious and I've seen it before offline:

"Coke will cure baldness"*

* Notice: Coke may or may not cure baldness

This little * is the real-world implementation of link-bait. Seems obvious to me now, and now I realise why I hate link-bait so much.