3 Things You Must Do NOW to Write Killer Internet Listicles

irony by Joe Varadi

1

Wow your readers with an irresistible opening! This is your hook, your pitch, your one chance to grab them by the … attention. This step is crucial! You have a stun gun inside you — use it! Your words are your Taser. Your thoughts are your venom. Your pen is your poison arrow. Your keyboard is a weapon-like blunt object. Your mouse is — you get the idea. Knock ’em dead, or at least render them momentarily immobile.

Apply Unusual Capitalization.

Use italics and exclamation marks!

center something

(even if your platform doesn’t support it)

2

Ok, they’re still with you. Eyeball retention is half the battle. Amazing job so far! You must now capitalize on your initial success, and give them something more. Throw them a bone, for having waded into your quicksand-like trap. No — throw them something heavier, so that it will be harder for them to get out. Content. Substance. It doesn’t need to be groundbreaking or original, but it had better be catchy.

Conjure up the zeitgeist. Tap into the throbbing pulse of the Here and Now. Borrow liberally from media headlines. Weave in some salacious gossip from TMZ. Heck, pillage other internet listicles, but judiciously reorder and reword. Make an effort to sound academically rigorous.

While restating truisms, repackaging clichés and hawking banalities, convince your reader that you are a visionary thinker, a creative genius, a trend-setter, trail-blazer and taste-maker, all in one.

“Quote celebrities. Whether or not it is something they actually said is immaterial.” — Morgan Freeman

3

Be Really Good at coming up with the Third Thing in a list. I cannot stress this enough. Remember,

if it doesn’t have at least three things, it isn’t really a list

Don’t just ramble on and use, like, filler words, hoping that the Third Thing will come to you. The Third Thing should be so epic and bombastic, so diabolically mystifying yet elegantly simple, that it could have been the Second Thing, or even the First Thing.

Keep in mind: if you don’t have a Fourth Thing, this will have to be your grand finalé. Go out with a bang! Most importantly, never let your reader onto the fact that you have temporarily run out of ideas. Drop a hint about your brand new, soon to be published listicle, which will be even more of a game changer!

Listicles are not merely standalone time capsules of human knowledge. They are not only shining testaments to the progress of mankind. Listicles are the DNA of the Internet.

If connected end to end, Internet listicles would form one continuous clickbait-peptide chain from the Earth to Second Life and back.

Go forth, brave young listicle-writer! You now have the tools at your disposal to add your 2 cents to this monumental body of work. You now have the skills to genetically enhance the genome of the Internet.

Use your powers wisely.

Thanks for making it this far!

Dedicating this piece to my cousin Gyula Kovacs, who knows a thing or two about media and marketing.

photo credit: medgadget