How to win titular metagames

Attention is your scarcest resource; thoughtful creators respect your attention. Good titles help internet curators efficiently route information to relevant aggregators. Good titles allow readers to quickly assess the relative value of articles, essays, videos, etc. Everyone wins when the titles match.

This is what I call my essays.

Note the title. It’s not “How I choose titles for my essays.” No, no, you wouldn’t have clicked on that title.

Here’s the dilemma: I want you to read this, but I can’t produce (or promote) misleading information. click bait.

A good title (1) spreads information to those who benefit from it (2) without wasting anyone’s time.

Quantifying clickbait

“Clickbait” is a relationship between title, article and reader.

Title is one
binary classification. We can model this relationship in a
confusion matrix:

We can also model clickbait as an epidemic. Let’s call it ‘influenca’. Here’s a way to estimate the value of a title
basic reproduction number
(“R-value”):

R₀ = b / c

• b (transmission speed) ≈
  (shares + comments) / (viewers × exposed users)
• c (recovery rate) = 1 / DWhere D It takes days for the interest to disappear

If R₀ > 1, the title spreads virally; if R₀ < 1, it disappears.In this framework, a good title (1) conveys the content to as many people as possible (2) without creating false classifications.

How titles spread

Titles spread in three ways:

1. News: e.g. Reddit, X, LinkedIn, HN, search engines, newsletters, etc.
2. DMs: e.g. “You might like this”, “this study shows…”, “maybe we should try…”, etc.
3. Contents: for example, linking quotes, providing context, podcast notes, pulling off a joke, etc.

Those are good titles
directions to a
latent space. The latent space is enormous, but titles act as coordinates in the collective consciousness. Participation
“shape rotator”
to someone who knows, and you call out the entire essay.

Titular references follow different life cycles than their referents:

1. News: People (and algorithms) who share/crosspost links often skim (or skip) the main content. Moderators (and algorithms) often curate these news feeds based on headlines. And yet other people (and algorithms) upvote/downvote/comment based solely on those titles.
2. DMs: People often share headlines because it’s a headline claim
   confirms/denies certain shared knowledge. For example, I would eagerly share ‘Gremlins 2 Voted Greatest Film Of All Time’ with my friends to remind them of the lasting legacy of the Gremlins franchise. In such scenarios, the headline acts as an invitation for discussion; neither the sender nor the recipient needs to open the linked web page.
3. Contents: Good headlines indicate great ideas. In real life human conversations, I’ve said that
   “You can’t reach the brain through the ears”
   And “There is no speed limit” And
   “attention is your scarcest resource”
   And “Don’t shave that yak”. This way, a title develops a life far beyond its intended use, while the original content remains stable (and searchable) forever, amen.

These clues themselves become data; headlines often spread without regard to the quality of their referents. This machinery creates perverse incentives.

The Buzzfeed-esque clickbait/thumbnail metagame continues to tempt creators/publishers with short-sighted, sensational headlines. It’s exhausting: titles can be so fun, so great, and so powerful.

But yes, you can completely fall prey to human prejudices. Enjoy that race-to-the-bottom, fool.

Ultimately, we become immune to the flu of yesteryear. Some of these headlines may trigger a deep-seated autoimmune response:

• What this 19-year-old knows about headlines
• Scientists Discover the Clickbait Formula (It’s Not What You Think)
• I spent 30 days trying to write honest headlines. What happened.
• This ONE STRANGE TRICK gets a gazillion clicks
• The surprising reason boring headlines actually win
• JRR Tolkien’s Magic Headline Formula
• We need to talk about this headline you just clicked on
• This is Clickbait. But here’s why it works.

If you publish media in this world, I invite you to reject parasitism. Choose symbiosis. It’s not a choice you make just once; it is something you choose again and again, every time you share information.

Title tips

Some patterns that work:

• Makes a strong claim: e.g
  Hollow is fine,
  We can and should domesticate raccoons,
  Maybe you’re not really trying,
  A blog post is a very long and complex search to find fascinating people and get them to send interesting things to your inbox,
  Spaced repetition can lower the stakes around destructive maintenance work in the inbox
• Plays with words/grammar/punctuation: e.g
  Getting away from the fact that you are already pretty much away from everything,
  AI is actually bad/good,
  Monetizing Kegel Factory Dementia Monkey Titty,
  America against China against America,
  Lady Tasting Brine,
  No Retvrn
• Next to each other: e.g
  Disneyland with the death penalty,
  Scratch ‘n’ Sniff stickers and the Indianapolis 500,
  Race in My little pony,
  Moai in video games,
  Magnets and garlic,
  Tracing the history of the “Asian” Barbie
• Invents vocabulary/sentence/system: e.g No S diet,
  Unclean sandwich,
  Give up seventy percent of the way through the hyperstitious defamation cascade,
  Breaching Trust Thermocline is the biggest hidden risk in business,
  Opinion Detox,
  Don’t specialize, but hybridize,
  Arsebest,
  Cyborgs vs. Chambers,

Additional tips:

• Commit to one title. Do not subtitle using a colon or hyphen, for example “Lorem Ipsum: Sit Dolor Amet”.
• Don’t confuse punchlines and headlines. A title should stand on its own.
• Distinguish yourself from similar products. If your title sounds like a thousand others, add a distinctive word. JavaScript tutorial is noise; Confucian JavaScript tutorial is a signal.
• Don’t go into famous titles. Patterns like “What I talk about when I talk about X” and “X is considered harmful” are cliché. They pass on the “couldn’t think of my own title” energy to potential readers.
• Be almost too specific. Vague titles are not mysterious; they are inconspicuous. “I Did Something Cool Today” invites skepticism. “I did a backflip today” invites curiosity.

To find an essay real name is to find the heart of the story. I often know the heading of an essay before the first sentence is even conceived; it’s normal when I’m trying to explain a single statement or make-believe sentence. But sometimes I “finish” an essay, start choosing a title, and then realize I actually have to cut 60% of the damn thing.

This is how the title of this essay evolved:

1. Give media a title
2. What I call my essays
3. Write better headlines
4. Universal clickbait theory
5. About flu
6. The clickbait meta is still evolving
7. We are vulnerable to sophisticated clickbait
8. This is how the title of this essay came about
9. How to win titular metagames

Here I have tried to select an ethical headline that would (1) pique your interest (2) without wasting your time. I hope I delivered the title goods. Thanks for reading.