Clickbait and First Thoughts.

First off, Happy 2015!

Recently, during the NCAA playoff game between Ohio St. and Alabama, a young woman was caught on camera seemingly doing something wrong. For those of you unaware of what I'm talking about, take a quick look via NPR examining the mystery.

Now, I did not see this initially during the game. I saw it floating around the internet the following day and decided to see what all the fuss was about.

First off, I had no idea what a "sidepiece" was and this word was dominating many of the headlines. After some reading of comments and after watching the video, I was made aware that the word "sidepiece" is referring to the person that is not your boyfriend/girlfriend.

Okay, a few things about this. One, I must be getting old and/or need to visit urban dictionary more. I've heard of "getting a little piece" on the side. It seems society has just turned that around. Makes sense, I guess. Of course, part of me was also looking for a gun of some sorts, as I have heard that called a "sidepiece" once or twice before. I watched this video many times looking for those things.

My main focus, before even reading the article and it's accompanying comments, is that this young lady takes something off the man's back and coyly places it in her mouth.  This is the first thing in the video that caught my eye. At no point in this video did I believe she was guilty of anything besides secretly trying to eat something she found on her boyfriend's back. She had the look of a young child that was trying to get away with eating a booger.

Which leads me to the point of selling articles and the thousands of people that had the first instinct to assume this girl was guilty of cheating on her boyfriend with this other guy at the game. To me, at no point does she look guilty of being caught on t.v.in a compromising situation. She doesn't try to hide or quickly back away from this guy. Yet, that's where many readers minds went to. Even after it has been confirmed that this gentleman is her boyfriend (or "mainpiece", for the youth out there).

Why do we do this? The same reason the headlines had the word "sidepiece" in them. It sells. It gets people to click on articles and videos that will often disappear after a few days and vanish into the pantheon that is the internet. People have begun to assume the worst about society and the internet takes advantage of that. We are presented with headlines that often don't have an article that is remotely related to the headline. All for the profit of "clicks" and "likes" and "shares".

Sure, it's a funny little clip. People have turned into being funny for all the wrong reasons, though. All I want to know is what she places in her mouth at the end of the video. The girl in the upper left is watching the entire thing take place.

The Zapruder film, it is not. With it still being discussed on the internet a few days after the fact, I figured I'd weigh in my two cents. That's what the internet is for. Weighing in two cents all for the click price of one. Assuming the worst while passing over the truth.  Maybe I'm just as guilty for even discussing this piece of "news" that is currently trending.

And yet, all I want to know is this: What exactly did this young lady eat off of this young man's neck?

I suppose we'll leave that up to the historians of our future...