The use of teasing headlines is well established as a hallmark of Internet news sites. The reasons for them are also pretty clear: they are designed as click-bait, which is a way of keeping viewers on the site while more ads are fed to them. That’s the point of making us click a link to “read more,” and it’s the whole point of writing headlines like this.

There’s another characteristic of Internet headlines that has become almost as common and that I find less easy to understand. This is the use of an inclusive point of view, usually signaled by the pronoun “we.” As in “We can’t stop talking about [whatever]” or “[Something] happened and we’re amazed!” Such headlines can also be prescriptive, announcing that “We need to” do this or “We need to stop ” doing that.

This is not the sort of headline writing that you see in print. In fact, I have a hard time even imagining such a headline in print, at least at any time before the current dispensation, when the boundaries between print and digital publication have blurred. On many online news sources, however, it has become nearly ubiquitous. Why?

Obviously it’s mean to be catchy. Every headline is meant to be catchy. But what is it about Internet publication that has given rise to this particular form of expression? I’ve called it “inclusive,” in part to set it apart from the “royal we.” I don’t think that’s how it’s meant. Instead, the author is apparently looking to adopt a sort of collective voice, expressing a common sense proposition that “we” would be foolish to disagree with.

Is striking such a note also meant to irritate? Like most Internet writing, there is a real value to pushing people’s buttons. So when your immediate response to such a presumptuous headline is to think “Speak for yourself,” then the headline has done its work. Perhaps you’ll even be drawn to make a comment!

At least I think that’s part of what’s in play. Perhaps another part of it has to do with the way that news sites on the Internet are so divided into political silos that the headline is meant as a bit of preliminary streaming. “We” all think this, and if you aren’t one of us then you probably shouldn’t be here. Or: This website is a community of the like-minded, and it addresses itself specifically, and exclusively, to those who identify with the sentiments expressed in the rest of this headline.

Whatever the explanation, I can’t say I’m a fan of these headlines. They seem to want to co-opt my agreement with whatever they’re going to say before they’ve even said it. At one point that might have been enough to get me to “read more,” but I’ve learned to ignore them. This leads me to hope that they may go away. I know that’s probably wishful thinking, but I like to believe that at some point the Internet will start getting better.