Every day I scroll through a news feed where some algorithm looks through what TV shows I watch, and see endless headlines that ask me easily answerable questions. They are questions that don't require an entire story to answer, questions that are only there to get a click routing to a page full of adds wrapped around one or two paragraphs of non-info.
The original stories of Sherlock Holmes, of course, came out in a different era.
Media in that time was just newspapers, letters, and word of mouth, and while newspapers were trying to get you to read them with big headlines shouted by newsboys, the ads were only a part of the revenue stream. You still had to pay for the paper. And those headlines were about the biggest stories that affected the most people. The London Times never tried to pull Jane Austen fans into buying papers with speculation about Elizabeth Bennett as the front page leader.
The internet, however, can slice and dice its readership into the slimmest tailored niche headlines. Had "The Final Problem" been published today, two years later, with another eight before "Empty House," we'd be getting constant headlines like "Conan Doyle Reveals Future Of Sherlock Holmes" (He was asked about writing more Holmes for the fiftieth time, he said "No." For the fiftieth time.). Or "What Will Happen To Sherlock Holmes's Killer After 'The Final Problem?'" (Well, we think he fell off that waterfall and died, but nobody saw it or found the body. You actually thought we knew more than you? Silly fan!)
The headline leading to the non-story is but one technique these "news" sites use to draw clicks. Another is picking some other site's actual essay and reporting on that as their own news story. Let's give that a try!
Christopher Plummer Portrays An Odd Preachy Sherlock
Is Christopher Plummer's portrayal of Sherlock Holmes in "Murder By Decree" a good representation of the classic detective?
In a recent blog post from Two Tarnished Beeches Christopher Plummer's performance was judged "odd" and "preachy" in a discussion that fans of Christopher Plummer will certainly disagree with.
Now, a sensible person is going to click on that link to the original post and quit reading the re-hash that was written just to generate a headline, but at that point, the derivative site has already got you to click on their link and shown you their ads.
Sherlock Holmes having fans means that we will always get clickbait about "Sherlock Holmes 3" or Benedict Cumberbatch or whatever comes next. We don't get quite the YouTube attention of a Disney-owned property, but maybe we just haven't found the right You-Tuber yet. That's a completely different topic . . .
Some weeks later . . . .
When I originally wrote this bit about clickbait headlines, I thought I had see the internet at its worst. Then came today's headlines on Google News, "Walmart to Shut Down All Stores in Illinois: What This Means To You," "Supermarkets Announce 1-day Store Closures -- Official Date Now Available," and on and on and on about stores announcing they're closing, until about fifteen headlines down someone finally gives the game away with "Walmart, Target will be closed for Thanksgiving again this year." Yep, same as every year. Good lord, the world has gone stupid . . . .
