Listicles are little delicate online articles that use lists to quickly and briefly explain any array of topics from talking about politics to even miscellaneous topics like the best types of food, etc.
Pros
Brief
Listicles typically are made of small paragraphs that explain or talk about the reason listed, like explaining how brief a listicle can be. Depending on how many things are listed and how much the writer fills needs to be explained, and some listicles can go up to 50 while others can simply go up to five.
Easy
Listicles are easy to write because they don’t require as much work as a typical article would, sure there is still some research that might need to go in but a lot if just tends to be writing what you think about something or what you’ve heard about them.
Fun
Listicles tend to be fun or entertaining, this namely depends on the subject matter of the listicle but since listicles typically contain a variety of interesting and fun topics, they are covered by other news organizations. They also contain quite a bit of graphic to keep them interesting.
Shareable
Listicles are extremely sharable, they are typically posted online so people are all sorts of available to see them and quickly share them with their friends and family. The shareable nature of listicles also make them trendy and popular among people and younger generations.
Cons
Nonsense
Most listicles tend to be nonsense, because listicles can cover any subject, they are most often subjects that most people would just consider unimportant. Because of this, listicles tend to be made for online only and they are not really popular with newspapers.
Spam
Since some listicles tend to be nonsense they can be seen as spam when shared by several other people who really don’t care about “5 facts to prove aliens exists” or something. Though it may contain some interesting facts and be an entertaining read, other might just see it as nonsensical spam.
Unoriginal
Listicles can be unoriginal depending on the subject, this can be because there are either multiple covering the same subject or done in the same format. Sure, there may be different things talked about if you compare similar listicles they tend to be pretty similar.
Dumbed Down
Listicles tend to be pretty simple to understand, normally it’s a good thing but, depending on the subject matter, it might not be the best thing for it to be simplified. Let’s say for example you find a listicle on the “great things about science paradigms” you might want some technical aspects to help explain why they were so great instead of giving the simple version.
Though I do enjoy listicles on the occasion I can’t ignore of the pros and cons about them and I typically ignore most of the ones posted unless it’s an interesting subject. Ultimately the listicle is form of journalist writing here to stay because of how popular they are, but when it comes down to it, they aren’t the best source of news.