I'll talk about marketing, actually, because part of the problem is that, bluntly, most of you are kind of inept in this department. By "kind of" I mean "have no idea what you're talking about but are smarter than marketers and it can't be nearly that complex so you're going to talk about it anyways".

Clickbait has come up a few times. The problem is that that isn't marketing, at least not in the sense that people here seem to think. If you're all for promoting marketing, quit promoting shit marketing because your ego is entangled in complex ways with the idea and you feel you have to defend that clickbait.

GEICO has good marketing, which doesn't sell you on their product at all. Indeed, the most prominent "marketing" element of their marketing - the "Saves you 15% or more" bit - mostly serves to distract you from the real marketing, which utilizes the halo effect, among other things, to get you to feel positively about them. (Name recognition, too.) The best elements of their marketing don't get noticed as marketing, indeed don't get noticed at all.

The issue with this entire conversation is that everybody seems to think marketing is noticed, and uses the examples they notice as examples of good marketing. Those are -terrible- examples, as demonstrated by the fact that you think of them when you think of marketing - and anybody you market to will, too. And then you justify these examples of marketing by relying on an unrealistically low opinion of average people - which many average people share.

Do you think somebody clicking on a "One Weird Trick" tries it out? No, they click on clickbait to see what it says, then move on, which is exactly its goal - be attractive enough to get someone's attention, entertaining enough to keep them interested, and no more. Clickbait doesn't impart anything - its goal isn't to be remembered or to change minds or to sell anything except itself, because its goal is to serve up ads to a steady stream of readers.

And if you click on Clickbait to see what stupid people are being tricked into believing - guess what, you're the "stupid person". You were the target audience, which is anybody they can get to click on their stuff, for any reason at all. The author of "This One Weird Trick" doesn't want to convince you to use it, they want you to add a little bit of traffic to the site, and if they can do that by crafting an article and headline that makes intelligent people want to click to see what gullible morons will buy into, they'll do it.

Clickbait isn't the answer. "Rationalist's One Weird Trick To a Happy Life" isn't the answer - indeed, it's the opposite of the answer, because it's deliberately setting rationality up as a sideshow to sell tickets to so people can laugh at what gullible morons buy into.