Clickbait Lists Are Not Good

Image of a checklist with circle with a slash over the top. I feel fairly certain in saying the author of the post 5 Albums meant no harm. Even the prompt: Introduce yourself with five albums that have shaped you seemed quite innocuous. And I thought: “Cool. I can write a response to this with one hand tied behind my back, and three of my fingers broken”. Part way in, I decided to throw a curveball: I was going to list ten albums. Actually more than ten because my list had multi-volume sets in it. I reject your rules and substitute my own! Take that! As I worked on my masterpiece, I inserted a couple of snarky little comments between the first and second half that were intended to be humorous about me breaking the rules. Those comments used words like “reductive” and “de minimis”. That's when I realized I was falling into a trap: the clickbait trap. Then I had a further realization: this wasn't just a list, it wasn't just clickbait, it was worse. So now, after defending writing and…