Sticky?
Yep. Once you are on there you are
bombarded with reasons to stay on. There is a top banner with at
least half a dozen links to other pages; a sidebar to rival the
Daily Mail’s sidebar of shame; and footers with links to other similar
pages around the site. And it’s amazing how attractive a list is.
Or a listicle as it has been termed. It’s not as daunting as an
article. It’s bite-size. It’s apparently still bite-size even
when the listicle is 40, 50 even 100 points long. And it’s probably
amusing. Or illustrated with amusing pictures. Or GIFS!!! Even news
can be distilled / simplified (depending on your perspective) down
into factlets.
Viral?
Absolutely. It’s the site that
thrives on social media. Everything about the site is about sharing
as far as you can. Indeed, it was one of the first sites to tweet
every single article it posts. And everything about the posts are
viral. The titles are crafted to pique curiosity. Not quite the clickbaity "you won't believe what happened next" but titles such as what exactly are
the 26 types of sweat you can smell on the Underground? Which
non-speaking extra from Eastenders are you? 39 hacks to enjoying an
avocado. How many of the 728 things every jogger thinks about have
you actually thought about. And SHARE it. Once you’ve found out
which teet of a cows udder most reflects your personality you’re
encouraged to share it. That’s why the post so heavily on the
Buzzfeed Twitter and Facebook accounts – because you can retweet or
share with a click. You can add your comments, tell everyone why
Chapel-en-le-Frith is the Derbyshire village in which you should be
buried.
They aren’t actual posts. Yet.
And that’s half the problem with
the site – the content. There’s so much of it. According to
Wikipedia, the global sites produce over 350 articles per day. Hence
why it gets so repetitive. Once you’ve worked through the major
sitcoms for “which main character are you”, you either have to go
for the bit-part characters, or the more obscure sitcoms. But they
still have to be done. And similarly, once they’ve done “which
city should you live in” for America, then it’s every country.
And then state. County. City. Town. Village. Hamlet.
But that’s not all that’s
repetitive. The posts themselves get repetitive. One week there will
be ‘16 signs that need an explanation’; the next week there will
be ‘27 signs that need better translations’. I know, when you’re
producing nearly 400 pages a day across many offices there is bound
to be some repetition. But there is too much. Contributors get a
taste for what works and exploit it until we got bored. There are
images and GIFs which have had more over-use than some of the
implements in my kitchen. The same vaguely amusing image can be used
in a post about the crappy weather, or about living in Manchester, or
about summer, or about Mondays. It’s almost as if they don’t try.
And a lot of them don’t. One of
the things which Buzzfeed ‘prides’ itself on – another way they
get you to stick on the site for hours or to come back – is the
community created content. Saw a post but think you can do better?
Give it a go! But because the community is often just doing that –
adding to an idea rather than creating it – and, moreover, as they
are not getting paid for it, it is sloppy. It is copying and pasting
content, usually from within Buzzfeed. Now, they do warn you of this
– there is a disclaimer of sorts that says that the content has
been created by a member of the community; but you only find that out
once you’ve clicked through to the page which turns out just to be
a compendium, once you’ve been disappointed by the “I’ve seen
this twenty times already somewhere” feeling. It isn’t even
really presented as a disclaimer but as an advert – a normal
person did this. You’re normal, aren’t you? Why don’t you do
this too?! Create your own list of 38 words that mean a different
thing if you were brought up living in a cave.
And because they are unpaid and –
particularly – untrained, the quality of the content is patchy.
Whilst some of it is good, a lot is recycled or rehashed, and a
surprising amount is just plain wrong. Take the entertaining ‘signs’
or ‘things that accidentally look like penises’ for example.
Many of them do not exist as presented. A lot have been ‘digitally
manipulated’ (Photoshopped); some specifically created with the
intention of being amusing. Yes, some are real, demonstrating why
designers should work in teams so that a number of perspectives can
see if there is something ‘wrong’ together with copywriters to
check for errors; but far too many are not. But this content is
simply not checked. In many cases a basic search of Snopes or other
such excellent websites will show that they have already been debunked.
The other half of the problem is –
the content. Or, more specifically, that it doesn’t really know
what it wants to be.
It has a lot of sections. You
probably mostly know it for the ‘LOL’ entertaining quizzes and
listicles. You may also have stumbled across the breaking news
section. There’s also the more straight-laced sections on books,
DIY and food (which is surprisingly (or maybe not so surprisingly)
vegetarian leaning). It even has “long-form” pages (known more
normally outside of Buzzfeed as articles), going behind the serious
news stories.
And there’s nothing wrong with
that. Look at the sections that fall out of the Sunday papers these
days. Aside from the entertainment gossip, all the other Buzzfeed
sections will appear. But it is the weighting given to each which is
different. And here it is perhaps a victim of its own success – or,
rather, birth. News, for example, was an add-on. It didn’t
originally feature. But it was something that a few people wanted,
and it gave Buzzfeed some credibility. The other sections (or
‘verticals’ as they are referred to in Buzzfeed – no idea why)
aren’t what drives the traffic to the site – that is still the
viral entertainment fluff – but they are sticky distractors;
keeping you on the site once you’re there. Afterall, once you’ve
found out which lake-set movie should be your favourite; why not try
18 recipes to cook with loganberries?
The long-forms themselves started
out almost accidentally. Just as the news section was created to
garner a bit more respect, gravitas, authority; so there was an
internal decision to broaden the appeal. But, when the breaking news
section linked to the Fox news site showing someone rather graphically committing suicide whilst pursued by police on live television,
Buzzfeed came in for a lot of criticism. So, to respond to that, they
examined – in long-form – the events leading up to that moment.
And so a new section was formed where they could take a more in-depth
look at the stories behind the news.
Buzzfeed shrugs off most criticism
as being from the sluggish old media, still not adapting to the
internet let alone social media; worried about losing clicks to this
new pretender to the throne. And to a degree they are correct. But
not all criticism is from the old media, or even direct competitors.
A feeling of ennui is starting to develop within their own community
and with other commentators.
And some of the criticism is very
correct. One thing that Buzzfeed is very adept at is taking a current
story – whether news, fun or general interest – and running it
itself, often in a very similar format or using very similar language
to another output. Copyright law is a tricky one, and there are only
so many ways that different sites can report the same stories; but
Buzzfeed cuts ‘lifting’ very close to the wire on occasions, and
on others it has had to acknowledge blatant plagiarism.
As a new source of news and
entertainment, they are still learning – they are “disrupting the
establishment” – whether it be by innovation or by more dirty
tricks. They are still developing their own style and procedures,
hence the lack of consistency across the site – even before
considering the community contributions.
The site is clearly very popular,
hence why there are a spawn of copycat sites popping up to nibble the
cherry – playbuzz and distractify to name but a couple. But for how
long? We’ve all seen the lifespan of the internet meme is quickly
over (remember Doge?) and Buzzfeed relies heavily on them. We’ve
also seen how quickly tastes change online and how very very quickly
sites that rely upon social interaction fall out of favour –
Friends Reunited or Myspace anyone?
Maybe the last post will be “The
38,897,264 Buzzfeed listicles you have probably already read.”
