Pearls Before Swine by Stephan Pastis for August 26, 2020

My favorite click bait is: [Famous person’s] family cried when they found out his/her actual worth.

Apparently these parasitic family members are having emotional breakdowns because they can’t freeload off their famous relative.

Yes , to click off .

Rat’s front page headliner:

Politician loses job.

Background music: “Midnight Star” by Weird Al Yankovic.

“Remember So-and-So? Try not to let your jaw drop when you see them now!”

If you live in Florida, what insect is not coming to your town?

80% of Americans are not getting enough of this…

How to tell if your spouse is cheating…

Add this vegetable to your diet and lose 30 pounds…

I do get sucked into a clickbait site every so often. But never EVER by phrases like that. The ones that catch my attention offer me something new to think about.

How come Rat is making sense again?

Rat is just trying to make GoComics some money ! … Croc Power !

I would definitely read “This actor is an insect who’s coming to your town in a deadly car.”

I knew I smell a Rat whenever I saw such headlines.

This is a relative pronoun.

This makes me want to block the site.

You can avoid clickbait with this one simple trick!

It hasn’t worked on me in a long, long time.

I think they may have killed their own Golden Goose by pushing it too far. When it’s constant, you stop seeing it. And when you realize it’s a slide show that expects you to click 57 times, you never do it again.

Those pop up ads drive me nuts.

Rat’s a master at this.

They are so easy to see coming im not sure how they get clicks anymore. Now comics might work on me.

Ah, the Fine Art of clickbait! Of course, the best ones then lure you into a fifty-item slideshow. The sad thing is that most young aspiring webnews writers will see nothing wrong in Rat’s work….

Use this one weird trick to end clickbait forever.

Excellent tutorial

It’s way worse than the old bait and switch. And I’ve watched the Youtube clickbait video a couple of times and still don’t understand how these tricksters make a buck from the click counts.

I like (well, I admire) the ones that say, Don’t Eat This Food! or, Avoid This Exercise! while showing a standard fruit/veggie or exercise. You THINK you’re doing the right thing, but beware! Of course, the standard food/exercise shown in the come-on thumbnail has nothing to do with the ad content.

This is reminding of a Pearls storyline from around 2006-08 where Rat was working as a tabloid journalist.

Those headlines really click. Sorry, I meant suck.

The ten secret ways that websites get you to click on their links!

Rat really has the pulse of the world to inform his writing. A Pulitzer prize is coming for you soon Rat. Keep up the good work Rat!

click bait

People in [your city, your state] are furious about this new law!

Exactly like the headlines I get in my Fox “News“ feed.

yeah, I wanted to see not why he is in trouble but why Hollywood has not contracted him again, plus I also wanted to know singles in my area, so not interested, but thanks for asking

And this is why our nation is in trouble.

Don’t forget 25 ways to . . .

Credulity is strained by the suggestion that any reputable news outlet would hire Rat as a copy editor.

Top Ten Places to Retire if you’re Obsessed with Seeing How this Actress Has Aged and Want to Invest in the Next Big Thing

So true

When Rat clicks, it makes me sick.

This is the way.

“You’d never believe that this comic could be so hilarious!”

Don’t read this comic before you see this.

Lose 30 pounds ($39.58 as of today). Pay me to tell you there are subreddits that list a lot of clickbait answers.

Even better, put “Why is ..” in the front of all of them. And don’t forget the ever popular “You won’t believe number 7”.

“The Best President In History Is Being Smeared! Find Out Who Is Doing It!”

Link goes to article claiming Abraham Lincoln once told Mary Todd Lincoln that she might change her hair style once in a while.