These Surprising Early Signs May Indicate That You Have a Length of Rebar Impaling Your Torso

In this special INTERACTIVE EDITION of the Bully Pulpit column, hidden secrets of attention-getting suddenly just … click.

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Now I’ve got it!

Perhaps you recall a few weeks ago, when I employed this space to detail the fundamental challenge facing online content creators, such as myself, Bob Odenkirk and Kim Kardashian. Namely: to get the notice of the public. For only with a growing audience can one generate enough revenue to stay afloat.

I tossed around various possibilities for arousing the interest of the masses — advertising, PR, sex tape. A human sacrifice may or may not have come up. But nothing seemed exactly right. Then, like a flash, it hit me. The answer was in my hand.

Ew. My smartphone, smart alec. That’s where the secrets reside for making humans click. Yet, out of arrogance and ignorance, for the first seven months of Bully Pulpit with Bob Garfield I have been using a different strategy — even if the truth was sitting right there in front of me. You see, BPwBG is billed as political, cultural and media commentary proffering honest arguments with neither fear nor favor. Gun control, marginal tax rates, climate change, particle physics, subverted democracy, 1st Amendment law.

Snoozefest, am I right? 

I mean maybe you consider yourself “curious” or “skeptical” or even “apoplectic” about 2022 American society and its institutions, but, let’s be real. Given the choice, which article are you gonna click on? A) Bob’s Opinion About Christian Nationalism or B) Miracle elasticized band disrupts $1 billion lobster claw-immobilization industry!

See what I mean? It’s just a matter of being more provocative. The hyperlink for either headline would take you to exactly the same destination, but by then I’d sooooo have your attention. I mean, what if, for example, my subject were — I dunno — book banning. Ok, that’s worthy. But not necessarily a traffic stopper. On the other hand, what about:

Famous surgeon reveals three gardening implements you should never shove in your anus

I mean, come on, how does anybody not wish to unlock that mystery? So click on it. Go ahead. This is the interactive part. Click. 

See? I am the beneficiary of the click. You get an illuminating BPwBG episode that, with all its trademark intellectual honesty and nuance, will still make your blood boil. Can you locate a flaw in this scheme service? (Don’t bother answering; it’s a rhetorical question.)

Or, instead of an eye-glazing episode about “the systematic erosion of America’s founding promises,” what if we piqued your interest with:

This razor made from recycled dryer lint is sweeping America!

But please understand, these are merely examples. It doesn’t have to be about dryer lint. It could be:

Try this simple trick for solving Fermat’s Last Theorem (It’s Genius!) Or …

Lose weight without diet or exercise! Ancient secrets revealed. Amputation.com. Or …

This woman in a stock photo has cleavage, but no connection to the advertiser Or …

Celebrities swear by these jumper cables

Are you clicking? Do you now understand the opportunity? The point is to feed America’s unquenchable thirst for shit that doesn’t matter in order to trick them into discovering something that maybe does. That last headline, by the way, should perform very, very well. I don’t myself possess those elaborate data sets available to sophisticated online marketers, but I have an inkling that internet users may be especially curious about celebrities and anything they do, don’t do, consume, touch, think, say, wear, visit, smear on their bodies or post on their Insta. So, for instance, tell me you don’t get a little dopamine buzz when you read this: 

Machine Gun Kelly or Taylor Swift … who is less Jewish?

Or this:

Mitch McConnell stuns as he rocks dad jeans at TGI Fridays

Honestly, the linked-to stuff about gun fetishists and false social-media certainty is just icing on the cake.

So, yes, I have leapt the primary obstacle for content creators, but that is not all! Why stop at clickbaiting toward podcast episodes? Why not infiltrate deep into the media diets of those intensely patriotic, heroically unvaccinated disinformation vectors called MAGA? I mean, what if the cure for all that ails us is to just set up hyperlinks and let nature take its course? Remember, this is interactive, so interact. The salvation of society is at your fingertips.

Stop the Steal! The pedophiles hate your liberty and also Costco.

New Covid-19 treatment Made in the USA from recycled medical waste

The government is giving away free AR-15s. Like new! 

That is all. You’re welcome.