BuzzFeed, Inc. is an American Internet media, news, and entertainment company with a focus on digital media. BuzzFeed was founded in 2006 by Jonah Peretti and John S. Johnson III, to focus on tracking viral content. Kenneth Lerer, co-founder and chairman of The Huffington Post, started as a co-founder and investor in BuzzFeed and is now the executive chairman.
Despite BuzzFeed’s entrance into serious journalism, a 2014 Pew Research Center survey found that in the United States, BuzzFeed was viewed as an unreliable source by the majority of respondents, regardless of age or political affiliation.
When I think of Buzzfeed, I think of “listicles”.
A listicle a short-form of writing that uses a list as its thematic structure, but is fleshed out with sufficient copy to be published as an article. A typical listicle will prominently feature a cardinal number in its title, with subsequent subheadings within the text itself reflecting this schema. The word is a portmanteau derived from list and article. It has also been suggested that the word evokes “popsicle”, emphasizing the fun but “not too nutritious” nature of the listicle.
So as I was reading these descriptions at Wikipedia, it struck me that my blog and Buzzfeed had a couple of key things in common with each other: jbreden.com could be “viewed as an unreliable source by the majority” and “not too nutritious nature”.
And the more I thought about it, the more I realized that several of my previous posts could potentially be Buzzfeed-like, as evidenced by the list below, which I might refer to as “11 Buzzfeed Worthy Posts at Jborden.com.”
- Six Myths about Choosing a College Major
- Seven Tips for Making the Best of an Extended Trip to London
- Seven Key Questions about Money You Need to Think About
- Can Eight Words Make a Better World?
- The Top Five Regrets of the Living
- Do These Five Things, and Live 12 to 14 Years Longer
- The 7 Lessons I Learned at Graduation
- The Top 6 Good-News Stories of 2015
- Top 365 Songs of the 20th Century
- Music Monday: The Top 25 Songs That Matter Now
- Music Monday: The Top 20 Acoustic Guitar Intros of All Time
In keeping with the nature of Buzzfeed and listicles, there’s not too much nutritional content in any of these posts, and any content within these posts could be highly unreliable.
You’ve been warned.
Despite its criticisms, Buzzfeed has been incredibly successful, although it has run into some problems recently.
So if it worked for them, maybe it will work for me.
I’m curious to see if my “listicle of listicles” leads to Buzzfeed like numbers:
- 200 million monthly unique visitors
- 163 million monthly readers
- 9 billion monthly content views
Heck, I’d be happy with just one-percent of those numbers. If this works, watch out for more listicles.
Wow! You’ve been. Blogging for a while now. Nice. Some interesting sounding posts there.
Nommed you for a Liebster 😉
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Yes, five years of blogging. Thank you for the nomination!
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No problem 😊
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I have never thought of your posts as unreliable information. And though I agree they are not necessarily a multi-vitamin of nutrition, they are not void of goodness. They are like a banana. Easy to peel, fun to eat, delicious, and definitely some good stuff nutrition wise in there.
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Thank you for your kind words, Brad! Since bananas are one of my favorite fruits, I like having my blog compared to one!
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It’s funny that Buzzfeed and it’s “listicles” are what blog tutorials often point to as examples for post formatting and writing headlines that attract more clicks. I used to think of Buzzfeed as pretty cheesy, but admittedly have warmed up to their posting over the years.
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Buzzfeed’s headlines are definitely click bait – but they apparently work, people click on them (myself included!)
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I love the word listicles. And I have been duly warned. 🙂
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it is a fun word; I wonder if it is in the dictionary?
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Just checked. It is!
https://www.merriam-webster.com/dictionary/listicle
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thanks; you are more ambitious than I am!
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I don’t know why but I find the word ‘listicles’ funny. Lists are a thing in writing content.
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It is an odd word; I’m not sure if it is officially in the dictionary though.
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My first encounter with the word actually.
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welcome to listicles!
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Good luck with your listicles.
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I try not to write a listicle too often – seems the easy way out…
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I wonder in how many way it might be easy. 😁
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