Three weeks ago a viewpoint was published by Mariah Joyce decrying the rise of clickbait news sources and Buzzfeed-style listicles and quizzes. I completely share her opinion that clickbait is a cancer upon humanity and is a vile extension of modern capitalist attitudes towards content production and consumption. Despite this, I found myself taking issue with Mariah’s article for two reasons.

The first (and most obvious for anyone who knows me) reason is that she began her article by describing how she had wanted to title it something along the lines of “The Odyssey Online, and other downfalls of modern society.” There are around 25 Wooster students, myself included, who write passionate, heartfelt articles every week to be published by The Odyssey. Needless to say, we weren’t exactly thrilled with this, especially when the rest of the article barely mentioned The Odyssey at all beyond lumping it in with Buzzfeed and Hercampus as a sort of journalistic Axis of Evil.

Mariah stated that her issue with these websites was that the deluge of quizzes and listicles were “for entertainment purposes only.” She enumerated through the rest of her article that the problem with these articles was that they were written to be popular. She describes this as a worrying trend in which entertainment and levity detract from reporting on serious issues like income inequality and global conflict. Herein lies my main issue with her viewpoint.

My argument for Mariah is that this has always been a problem, and her rant about it is, in fact, representative of a much more recent trend. Her article lambasts the failure of journalistic integrity in favor of popular production and the ignoring of important issues to focus on the irrelevant or the eye-catching. This is nothing new.

The term “yellow journalism” is used to describe journalism that relies on exaggeration or sensationalism to sell. It came into use in the mid-1890s during the circulation war between William Randolph Hearst and Joseph Pulitzer. Get that? The man whose name is on the award for exceptional journalism was a man who produced entertainment and shock-value content. That, in itself, is amusing, but the use of sensationalism has dated back even further to the Roman Acta Diurna, where official notes and messages were presented on public message boards. TV shows and movies fall under this category too, being funded by advertising revenue in an eerily similar manner to clickbait articles.

Despite this, journalism has tended to be reputable. To understand the apparent shift, we need to recognize that the development of the internet has completely changed the way information works. Quality journalism, of the sort Mariah so dearly covets, is readily available at any time, almost anywhere. This has led to a problem, not from clickbait, but from serious reporting.

Recent surveys have indicated that as many as 71 percent of respondents think the world is getting worse, despite the fact that we are living in the longest period of near-global peace in human history. This is a direct result of the increased availability of negative news and the fact that negative sells.

It sells so well that almost three-quarters of everyone asked believe the world is getting worse. It sells on sensationalism and exaggeration, exacerbated by an overabundance of information online and in the 24-hour news cycle. It sells so well that formerly reputable print mediums have to adapt or die. It has become less about informing and more about fear-mongering, leading to the rise of Donald Trump, UKIP, and similar people and organizations who rely on popular anxiety.

So if you find yourself drawn to a cheesy clickbait article titled “27 Times Tumblr Made Us Laugh: I Lost It At Number 19,” don’t worry about it. We could all use a little more levity in our lives.

Sam Corrigan, a Contributing Writer for the Voice, can be reached for comment at SCorrigan19@wooster.edu.