Just wanted to clarify that people who are reading Lifehack are very much used to the kind of material there - it's cognitively easy for them and they don't perceive it as a gimmick. So their first impression of rationality is not as a gimmick but as something that they might be interested in. After that, they don't go to the Less Wrong website, but to the Intentional Insights website. There, they get more high-level material that slowly takes them up the level of complexity. Only some choose to go up this ladder, and most do not. Then, after they are sufficiently advanced, we introduce them to more complex content on ClearerThinking, CFAR, and LW itself. This is to avoid the problem of Endless September and other challenges. More about our strategy is in my comment.

Does the gimmick really matter once folks have clicked on your stuff

The useful words are "first impression" and "anchoring".

That's a good strategy when you have GEICO's name recognition.

How many people had heard of the Government Employee's Insurance Company prior to that advertising campaign? The important part of "GEICO can save you 15% or more on car insurance" is repeating the name. They started with a Gecko so they could repeat their name at you, over and over, in a way that wasn't tiring. It was, bluntly, a genius advertising campaign.

If you don't, maybe getting noticed isn't such a bad thing.

Your goal isn't to get noticed, your goal is to become familiar.

And maybe "One Weird Trick" is a gimmick, but then so is GEICO's caveman series - which is also associated with a stereotype of someone being stupid.

You don't notice any other elements to the caveman series? You don't notice the fact that the caveman isn't stupid? That the commercials are a mockery of their own insensitivity? That the series about a picked-upon identity suffering from a stereotype was so insanely popular that a commercial nearly spawned its own TV show?

Does the gimmick really matter once folks have clicked on your stuff and want to see what it's about? That's your chance to build some positive name recognition.

Yes, the gimmick matters. The gimmick determines people's attitude coming in. Are they coming to laugh and mock you, or to see what you have to say? And if you don't have the social competency to develop their as-yet-unformed attitude coming in, you sure as hell don't have the social competency to take control of it once they've already committed to how they see you.

Which is to say: Yes. First impressions matter.