Hello everyone, this is your token Asian guy speaking. Back from Wisconsin, important crap mostly taken care of, and bored enough to type this blob of text.
I got started on this entire “article writing” business when I approached Glenn and Supreet about writing stuff for this site, I had the editorial focus of a nearsighted kid with ADHD on sugar–in a silverware shop. In other words, topics will vary, and may or may not interest you, nor any of your geekiest friends from Google’s subterranean LARP’ing compound. Fortunately for those of you who have better things to do with your time, such as sock shopping, counting the stitches on your pants, or masturbating with an acetone-soaked strip of sandpaper, I’ll try to make the title as descriptive as possible.
For example, if I were to do a review of bagels, the title would be: “A Review of Bagels: Awww Yea!”
Consumer psychology on cars: “The People want German iPod Compatible Turbocharged Hybrids Now”
That one time I found a penny on the street: “So this one time I found a penny on the street…”
And so on.
Occasionally I will be at a lost on how to title the article, so the header would be an after-thought. For you, Mr/Miss Busy-Counting-the-Hairs-on-Your-Head-by-Sound, go ahead and knock that to-do list down, stomp it into the ground, burn the list, stomp the ashes into the ground, burn the ashes, and (why not?), burn the ground, and then click the link that reads non-sensically: “The Sub-Atomic Structure of Pencil Lead: A Criticism”
It’ll still be there.
While we are on the subject, titles are THE most important part of ANYTHING.
To illustrate my point, here is a list of allegedly real product titles (with comments in parentheses):
- Street Fighter (Street fighting!? SWEET! Although it should have been called SHORYUKEN)
- Serato Scratch Live (Catchy and easily acronym-ized.)
- 3,000 Dollars (Original title of Pretty Woman.)
- Good in a Room (Title of the book where I found that out. Good book too.)
- Anal Sluts 9 (No question there.)
- Final Fantasy VII: Advent Children (The number “VII” is the only selling point here)
- Flarn (I suspect either a Swedish joke, or a marketing ploy by IKEA)
- IKEA (Yea, here is where commercials come into play)
And most importantly:
- Snakes on a Plane (Samuel L Jackson would’ve quit if the title was changed)
As you could see, a good title must 1) give the reader an idea what it is, 2) be memorable, 3) relevant, and/or 4) short and sweet. A good title will draw your attention to whatever it is, and take that important step of getting your attention. True, you should not judge a book by its cover, but a title like buy·ology can really stick out. Another good example:
- Kia R Soul (Say it out loud)
Otherwise you’d end up with a manly boxing movie being called: Cinderella Man
It was a box office flop by the way. Too girly of a title to get men to see it, and too manly of a movie for girls to recommend to their friends. But sometimes not even a title emblazoned in gold, tits, lightning and god’s piss could save the product itself, like My Chemical Romance, Pontiac Aztec, or, my favorite, the Smart Car (It would have been smart if it was made to be actually comfortable).
You get the idea (I hope), titles are the grappling hooks we use to catch people’s fleeting S.S. Attention for a precious few seconds to drill deeper and embed our ideas. However, if the ideas are straight up shit, the entire thing’s worthless. For further reading on how to catch someone’s attention in a marketing pitch, I recommend Good in a Room by Stephanie Palmer. I also recommend The Alphabet of Manliness by Maddox if you are bored and unable to use electricity save for a flashlight.
Next week: who knows
Everybody Gay
-ZBOT