Trust Me, I'm Lying: Confessions of a Media Manipulator

by Ryan Holiday

Pretend for a second that you read an article on some blog about an issue that makes you angry. Angry enough that you must let the author know how you feel about it: You go to leave a comment. You must be logged in to comment, the site tells you. Not yet a member? Register now. Click, a new page comes up with ads all across it. Fill out the form on the page, handing over an e-mail address, gender, and city, and hit “submit.” Damn, got the CAPTCHA wrong, so the page reloads with another ad. Finally get it right and get the confirmation page (another page, another ad). Check e-mail: Click this link to validate your account. Registration is now complete, it says: another page and another ad. Log in. More pages, more ads, but you have finally “engaged.” This is how it is everywhere. It might take as many as ten pageviews to leave a comment on a blog the first time. Or when you see a mistake in an article and fill out the Send Corrections form? Well, first they’ll need your e-mail address, and then they ask if you want to receive daily e-mails from them.* When you do this, you are the sucker. The site doesn’t care about your opinion; they care that, by eliciting it, they score free pageviews. Of course, this kind of manipulation is not new—it is endemic to all kinds of media.