The truth about...

I can't stand it anymore!

I won't even click on them. What started as a seemingly harmless clickbait headline became an overnight monster of Internet spam! It's no longer genuine. I'm sorry, but if you write well-written articles about sensitive topics and use that as your header, you're just putting yourself down. You are better than that as an author. Don't pick a label just because 10,000 others were able to use it to achieve clicks on their page. It's no better than exhausting natural resources just because you can. By using that kind of header, you enable readers to fall victim to clickbait.

The following examples are here for the sake of an educational discussion. I do not endorse nor condemn them.

These headers include:

The awful truth about ______.

The real truth about _____.

The hard truth about _______.

The honest truth about _______.

The sad truth about _______.

Stop! Please! It's too much!

Every single one of these articles is an opinion! The same goes for this article that I have written. It is the author's personal truth. Not a universal truth upheld by all human kind. Whether it should be upheld or not is an entirely different argument. One that maybe should be addressed in the article. But alas, is that revealed in any way? No, it is not. The articles are written the same way as if they had a more appropriate title.

So, why the trickery? Is it to spark debate - to reel the readers in? I feel that it is unfair regardless. For this article, I did not go and write "The surprising truth about truth articles." That sounds stupid. However, these articles may rely on personal experiences and very concrete scientific evidence. That is awesome! They should rely on those. That is commendable! Headlining them with this notion that because of "insert author's reasoning" must make them a truth, is not.

To get into why I'm making such a fuss, one must ask themselves: What is truth? Really, sit down and think long and hard about this existential question. If you don't get serious or even change your opinion at least a couple times, then you did not think deeply enough. This question has a pretty huge flame. It's just as relevant/irrelevant as the whole "why are we here" question. It is one that cannot be defined with one answer. Its answer will vary person-to-person, generation-to-generation and day-to-day. Do those facts make it true? Can there be such a thing as a true question?

Aside from the existential, I ask you to go and research this for yourself. Find books, articles, art, music - anything that questions something. I'm not saying go and throw all of your beliefs out the window. I am saying, question everything. It is OK to have skepticism. If you believe something to be a truth, that is great! Ask yourself some questions about it too. What makes this piece true? Is this a false idea? Could it be a truth to someone and a lie to someone else?

Whatever the answers you find are, it does not matter. If you believe something to be true, that is fine. You may change your mind someday and that is also fine. The point is, how can we all know something true, or make a statement about truth if we do not know what truth is?

Remember, knowledge is based on facts. Truth is a personal interpretation of facts and knowledge. Therefore, one can argue that truth is a personal opinion. I want to see authors that use this tactic in their articles, but recognize that their article is a personal truth founded by them. Calling something a truth does not make it true for everyone.