<VV> Will the Corvair Kill You? (Minimal Corvair Content)

[roboman91324 at aol.com]

So Bob,

 
Don't leave us hanging.  Is Donald Trump the love child of space aliens and are they illegal?  Is that hair typical of the species?
 
Inquiring minds want to know.
 
Kidding aside, I realize that developing "click bait" has become a real profession.  I am a victim as I suspect we all are.  The content associated with the "bait" is usually a huge disappointment compared to the promise of the subject line.  AOL offers up 60 or so primary subjects on their "Welcome Page" each day with hundreds of secondary subjects.  They must have a department full of literary geniuses creating subject lines.  When you take the bait and click for the answer to the bait question, it leads to a page with minuscule content but a dozen commercial ads.  To get to the "answer" to the subject question, you need to click through a chain of 6 to 12 additional pages each with scant additional content but full of ads.  When you get to the answer to the bait question it is invariably anticlimactic.  I am at the point where I respond to fewer and fewer bait questions and when I see "Click for Slide Show" on the first page, I never click no matter how enticing the bait question is.
 
By the way, i agree that "Will the Corvair Kill You?" was a great bait question.  At least there was real content that followed it.
 
Doc
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In a message dated 11/17/2017 9:05:26 AM Pacific Standard Time, virtualvairs-request at corvair.org writes:

 
Message: 4
Date: Fri, 17 Nov 2017 10:58:04 -0500
From: "Robert Marlow, Vairtec Corporation" <vairtec at optimum.net>
To: virtualvairs at corvair.org, BobHelt at aol.com
Subject: Re: <VV> Will the Corvair Kill You?
Message-ID: <14318638-ed57-cb5e-f686-3abd2402ae09 at optimum.net>
Content-Type: text/plain; charset=utf-8; format=flowed

Bob Helt, you confess that you risk sounding like "an old fuddy-duddy," but as a card-carrying old fuddy-duddy myself I am here to opine that "Will the Corvair Kill You?" is a GREAT title!

I say this as someone who has been dealing with print headlines since 1969 and online titles more recently.

Years ago, a proper print headline for this topic might have been "Is the Corvair Safe, Hagerty Asks," or the even less interesting "Hagerty Tests the Corvair's Stability."

Today, headline-writing has evolved into online subject-line writing, and the purpose is no longer to tell what the story is about, but to entice readers to click on the story.? That's why so many of them are now phrased as questions ("Is Donald Trump the Child of Space Aliens?") or the more common (and less intelligent) "You Won't Believe" format ("They Tested Donald Trump's DNA and You Won't Believe What They Found!")

While you can argue correctly that the Corvair has been proven to be safe, whether we like it or not it is still strongly associated with "Unsafe."? The Hagerty article and video support the conclusion of safety, and the "Will the Corvair Kill You?" headline gets people to read the story.

It's a great headline because it is modern, intriguing, effective -- and appropriate.

--Bob Marlow