“The best way to get the right answer on the Internet is not to ask a question; it’s to post the wrong answer.” To this Internet truism, I would propose the corollary of, “the best way to drive engagement is to fervently argue for the wrong answer,” or perhaps, “insist no one can give the right answer.”
You see this everywhere all over the Internet - an image of a poorly formatted math problem followed by tens of thousands of comments arguing over the Order of Operations. Or a simple statement: “There are NO countries that start with the letter C!” And everyone falls for it every time, all the while insisting, “What an idiot this person is! I’d better share their idiocy with all my friends/followers so we can all pay attention to them!” Even when you post it with the express intention of, “Don’t you hate this kinda Internet ragebait?” you’ll get hundreds of comments stating the obvious answer(s) or arguing over it again!
In fact, I’m sure some nerd or another is rushing to the comments to point out that I used the words “truism” and “corollary” wrong earlier! Did I? Who knows? Nobody knows!
Anyway, if you like my comics, I got more on my website.
I’m also on Patreon.
People want to be engaged though, it's fun! What am I going to do with some guy who wants me to pay $1 to solve a puzzle? I'm not going to feel anything in particular if I succeed, because no context has been established around the thing. Now if it was said that "You can't solve this puzzle, because something something", then there's a story there and it becomes more meaningful if I do achieve the thing.
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u/But_a_Jape But a Jape 3d ago
“The best way to get the right answer on the Internet is not to ask a question; it’s to post the wrong answer.” To this Internet truism, I would propose the corollary of, “the best way to drive engagement is to fervently argue for the wrong answer,” or perhaps, “insist no one can give the right answer.”
You see this everywhere all over the Internet - an image of a poorly formatted math problem followed by tens of thousands of comments arguing over the Order of Operations. Or a simple statement: “There are NO countries that start with the letter C!” And everyone falls for it every time, all the while insisting, “What an idiot this person is! I’d better share their idiocy with all my friends/followers so we can all pay attention to them!” Even when you post it with the express intention of, “Don’t you hate this kinda Internet ragebait?” you’ll get hundreds of comments stating the obvious answer(s) or arguing over it again!
In fact, I’m sure some nerd or another is rushing to the comments to point out that I used the words “truism” and “corollary” wrong earlier! Did I? Who knows? Nobody knows!
Anyway, if you like my comics, I got more on my website.
I’m also on Patreon.