Headline and social media post formulas that need to be killed with fire

Seriously, I can’t respect you if you write shit like this no matter how badly you need to pander to “the algorithms,” “the millennials,” and “the Facebook.”

Just for clarification, this is a rant via f-bomb laden gifs prompted by a particularly cringe-worthy scroll through FB and Twitter. If you want a substantive critique of click-bait and lazy writing, this is not the post for you.

Sometimes these may be attached to legitimate, decent articles but the odds are not in our favor.

1. Any headline referring to an interaction between two or more parties on a social media platform and includes any of the following words: destroy, decimate, shut down, obliterate, or annihilate.

2. Someone did/said a thing and Someone Else had a perfect response

3. Someone just said/wrote/posted the perfect __________ that you’ve/we’ve been waiting for

4. Named Dude’s wife/girlfriend/daughter/associate/classmate from 4th grade does amazing thing

5. Everything you need to know about _____________________

6. Millennials do/say/buy/write/travel to/eat/care about ____________ more than/less than according to new study

7. Something happened and you won’t believe what happened next

Heather Bryant is a journalist and a software engineer. She builds things for journalism. And she reads a lot of it. And sometimes she gets very tired and that’s where posts like this come from.