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The Fortnite community has seen the rise of clickbait culture in the last few years. Coupled with impression farming, the clickbait culture thrives on manipulating youngsters to get their viewership with false promises.
Sadly, clickbait culture has become an inseparable part of the Fortnite community. While most deem it toxic, others see it as a means to justify ends. Numerous YouTubers and casual players use images, thumbnails, and visual aids which fool the audience and make them click on the post or video.
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Popular YouTuber SunnyV2 recently uploaded a video to YouTube exposing one such content creator who used clickbait to gain his popularity. The creator in question is LispyJimmy, but he is not the only one who has followed this clickbait formula to gain his popularity.
The questions asked in the video can be related to several other content creators who use the same method.
The focus here will be to discuss some of the methods used by creators which may be deemed as clickbait and impression farming.
The clickbait culture in Fortnite Battle Royale
"Drop a like in the next five seconds or else.." This sort of pitch at the start of a video is quite common in the Fortnite community. This is a manipulative strategy to get viewership from young kids. In a way, this is a way to cheat or work around YouTube algorithms. Hence, a Fortnite video with the wrong information might trend just because it got a lot of views.
Whether it is a video about challenges or new leaks or just montages: this technique lures in a gullible audience quite easily.
While this practice is deemed clickbait, there are several who still openly propagate this phenomenon.
One may ask, "How is this hurting anyone or affecting the community?" The answer is quite simple: clickbait violates YouTube's TOS and policies.
When a video starts with a hook like: "Quick, like and subscribe or else your Fortnite account will be banned," it spreads fear amongst young viewers. They like, subscribe, and do whatever they are told to save their accounts.
This sort of fear-mongering for increasing one's popularity and viewership is known as impression farming.
If a channel propagates a message through the title or thumbnail of a video, then the subject of the video must have the same context. Otherwise, it is deemed manipulative and clickbait. To understand this better, fans can see any of the videos made by SypherPK, Lachlan, TheCampingRusher, or any of the popular content creators.
Their videos often have a catchy title with an appealing thumbnail, and the context of the subject is always present inside the video. There is absolutely no manipulation whatsoever in this type of content. These reputable creators discuss what they highlight in the headlines, which makes the content top-notch.
Contrary to this practice, there are several who speak about one subject in their titles and thumbnails but do not have enough material regarding that subject inside the video. This is invariably the worst form of clickbait in the Fortnite community.
There are too many creators in the Fortnite community who use the same tricks to lure in youngsters. Oftentimes, these clickbait accounts promise players that they will get some sort of gift card or reward for watching, liking, and subscribing to their video. However, it is unclear if anyone ever gets these rewards from clickbait YouTubers.
The clickbait culture was at its peak from 2018-2020. But now, fans are starting to realize the difference between YouTubers who make false promises, and creators who make genuine content.
As for which creator can be deemed a clickbait YouTuber, that is for the community to decide.
Fans shouldn't be surprised or shocked to see that over 40% of all Fortnite content on YouTube is clickbait. The best fans can do is to avoid any content that is only looking for likes, views, and subscriptions without providing the viewer with proper information.
Disclaimer: This article reflects the views of the author.
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