If there is something that grates my nerves in this world of digital journalism, it's clickbait.

There are quite a few things about clickbait that make me absolutely cringe. As a journalism major who has spent years of my life in school, seeing attention go to sites that aren't practicing ethics and are using clickbait as a form of traffic and revenue is one of the most insulting things in the world. Us journalists dedicate a lot of time to learning how to formulate proper headlines, content, and clicks that have substance to them.

Clickbait is inherently dishonest. Not only it is sensationalizing a piece (which we learned during the yellow journalism era is unethical and wrong), but it completely goes against the piece itself. When you open an article or a list with a clickbait heading, how many times has that piece been honest? Here's another question, because I know what you're thinking: How many times has that piece been something at all like what you were expecting?

That's right. Almost never. In fact, if you've stumbled upon clickbait that was both factual and true to its word, you're a unicorn. Because chances are you haven't. If you've found something sensational that was both honest and what you expected, chances are you opened up a news story that was poorly written or one that was batty. A good news story doesn't use clickbait. Ever. It's a cardinal sin.

Clickbait also completely detracts from the content within the headline. Let's say I wrote a piece about starvation and its ramifications on third world countries. If I gave it an appropriate title, you would remember the content and not the title. If I titled it something super clickbaitey, you would remember the title and not the content. That's the point of clickbait: they want to get you talking. Unfortunately, you're only talking about the headline. That headline becomes so memorable that everything below it is completely wiped from your memory. As you're reading it, you're thinking about that title.

Seriously, try to tell me the actual content of something you read that was clickbait. Not the title, the content. You can't remember it, can you? See? It's empty clicks that go nowhere in the end.

Most of all, clickbait is just plain insulting. It's meaningless and it gives away the point of your entire piece within just a few characters. In journalism, you're not telling. You're showing. My job is to show you something through the quotes, documents and actions of other people. If I said that Sally had ice cream in the park, it's not as meaningful to you as it would be if I created an entire paragraph describing Sally and her chocolate ice cream.

We put a lot of work into what we do. This is not a profession that is 9 a.m. to 5 p.m., holidays and weekends off. This is a profession that takes time, ethics and a lot of life to do. To give it all up in the title is insulting to the amount of effort you put into the content itself. If you believe that clickbait is the best form of journalism, then you don't appreciate journalism.

Clickbait creators need to have respect for those of us who have actually taken the time to learn how to craft headlines and content the authentic, appropriate way. They need to remember that clickbait is an abyss to nowhere. Mastering clickbait and fake news is a skill you can learn in three hours while you sip your morning coffee. The real journalism takes an immense amount of training, and it's incredibly annoying when those who don't appreciate it take that away from us.