The three tricks that Ryan Holiday describes in part I of his book, Trust Me I’m Lying: Confessions of a Media Manipulator, that I find the most important and interesting is tactic 3: give them what spreads, not what’s good, tactic 4: help them trick their readers, and tactic 6: make it all about the headline. Tactic 3 states how it’s important for whatever the content is, it has to reach a lot of people and go viral to be successful. This can be achieved by creating polarizing content that appeals to people’s emotions. The goal is to have the propaganda “a life of their own and get attention, links, and new readers with the least work possible.” Tactic 4 is used to trick people into reading certain content and media. People us loaded questions as headlines because it allows people to understand what an article is about and also asking them a question people will want an answer to. Using a question also allows propagandists to say something false without getting criticized for it. They also want to generate a lot of comments by using polarizing content. Tactic 6 is very important because the headline is what everyone sees first and influences them to click on it or not. The headline is seen everywhere on the web and can spread fast, no matter how reliable or true it is. The headline has to appeal to everyone. A headline must show what the article is about and its central ideas and must be presented in an exciting manner in just a few words. I can relate to this because I personally have clicked on ridiculous headlines despite knowing it is fake. I have done this usually when I’m bored and curious about what the article actually says despite knowing its nonsense.
Here is some examples of tactic 6 in media headlines.
