What feminists get wrong about clickbait

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More than 4 million people have watched my videos — many because I open with lines some would consider clickbait.

I also have a Ph.D in education, am a feminist, and study the relationship between digital media and girls’ and women’s autonomy and rights.

For years, I insisted that my type of clickbait was categorically different from the manipulative drivel designed to trap teens. Mine, I argued, was principled — an entry point into substantive dialogue rather than an attention trap. But after a recent meeting at the Santa Cruz Feminist Society, that certainty eroded.

I left with an ethical question: I engineer those hooks to grab short attention spans so my voice won’t get lost. Can I do this ethically?

The tension crystallized during our discussion, titled “Clickbait, Polarization, and the Threats to Women’s Rights in the Digital Age.” I had planned to strategize how we might harness social media’s architecture to amplify truthful feminist narratives. Instead, I confronted an unsettling inquiry: perhaps the issue is not how we use these tools, but whether adopting their logic implicates us in the dynamics we seek to resist.

The room brimmed with professionals, mothers and activists in their 20s to 60s, many newly politicized by this moment. One founder walked us through research on how clickbait exploits our psychology: the curiosity gap, the dopamine hit, the way anger-provoking headlines outperform information. I nodded. I’ve spent years studying media, power and gender.

Then my stomach dropped.

I am a content creator. I run an online parenting business with more than a million followers. I have spent years learning how to write hooks that stop the scroll. Over 4 million people have watched videos where I open with some version of: “If your daughter is between 8 and 12, her confidence will be decided in the next three years.”

That is urgency. That is emotional leverage. It is also clickbait.

So am I part of the problem?

Not all clickbait is the same

At the meeting, the conversation cracked something open for me. Some argued that all clickbait is toxic manipulation. Others drew distinctions: content that provokes grievance and nostalgia, such as the viral “tradwife” trends my colleague wrote about in Lookout, which romanticize rigid gender roles under the guise of empowerment, versus content that invites critical engagement.

As a feminist mom and educator, I try to practice the latter. I pose questions about how and when girls begin to internalize or resist confidence. I want families to think about what our tweens need in a digital ecosystem calibrated for comparison. Our girls measure social currency in likes, and algorithms reward emotional extremes.

I teach families to model digital literacy, challenge gendered assumptions about toys, games and emotions, and talk openly about consent and sexism. If I use a compelling hook, it is to draw families into that deeper work – not to bypass judgment, but to activate it.

When I write about the tween years between 8 and 12, I’m not inventing fear. Research shows that early adolescence shapes girls’ self-concept in lasting ways, affecting friendships, risk-taking, academic choices and even future relationships. I use urgency to move parents toward conversations about how to be a good friend and how to stand up to peers.

Compare that to a headline we discussed: “Most women don’t want to work; they just want to be moms.” Same tactic. Different aim. One narrows women’s possibilities. The other tries to expand them.

The difference matters. And yet I can’t fully escape the tension.

We talked about how metric-driven platforms such as Instagram, Facebook, TikTok and Snapchat reward engagement, not accuracy. There, clickbait becomes a tool to proliferate misinformation, manipulate groupthink and spread sensationalized attacks on women’s rights, reproductive health and gender equality.

What makes this dangerous isn’t just the algorithm – it’s our response.

We’re being manipulated not just by algorithms, but by our misperception of consensus.

Nearly 80% of social media content is created by only 10% of users, and that 10% tends to be extreme. According to New York University professor Jay Van Bavel, 10% of users produce roughly 97% of political tweets, and just 0.1% share 80% of fake news.

These are loud outliers. But because algorithms reward provocation over truth, we mistake the vocal fringe for the mainstream.

The real problem isn’t that algorithms radicalize us. It’s that we see the extremes, assume everyone thinks that way, and silence ourselves in response.

And that silence is profound. Two-thirds of Americans, across political and demographic lines, report self-silencing. We’re being conditioned to believe we’re alone in our views — even when we’re not.

Algorithms also reward anger. They decide what feels urgent, what becomes sayable, whose pain trends and whose disappears. We watched videos of immigration raids explode across feeds, while other accounts of families detained barely surfaced at all. Same agency. Same trauma. Different emotional temperatures.

That’s not neutrality. That’s power quietly directing our collective attention, amplifying the stories that inflame us and burying the ones that don’t.

So am I fooling myself, thinking I can use these tools for something different?

Can the master’s tools build something new?

Audre Lorde warned that the master’s tools will never dismantle the master’s house. I think about this every time I hit “post.”

I’m not trying to smash the algorithm. I’m trying to interrupt it. I’m not burning the house down; I’m cutting a side door.

I use the same tools – hooks, headlines, urgency – but I refuse to let them be traps. A hook can be an invitation to depth, self-examination and harder conversations at the dinner table.

You, too, can become a more critical consumer. Pause before you share. Reward nuance with your attention. Click on what informs you, not just what inflames you. The algorithm follows us.

That insistence on hope, possibility and another way to show up is political. In a moment of despair, choosing to believe my work can call parents into feminist thinking is a form of resistance. It refuses the cynicism that says nothing can change.

Asserting that parents can raise feminist children is not naïve – it’s an act of resistance.

Parents have the power to guide their children through friendship, bullying and social pressures, helping them develop a strong moral compass and the courage to stand up for others – especially in a world where popularity is measured by likes and shares.

My work with parents begins online, but it must go far beyond the digital realm. Posting, liking and sharing alone are no longer sufficient.

What this moment calls for is transforming engagement from a passive endpoint into an active beginning – a deliberate practice of reflection. We must move from clicking to questioning: Who created this content? What emotion is it trying to provoke? Who benefits if I believe it? What perspectives and stories are missing?

This shift from consumption to inquiry is essential if we want to nurture thoughtful, empowered young people capable of navigating a fragmented digital landscape.

The Santa Cruz Feminist Society engages in that practice. We gather, we argue, we listen. We take what we learn back into our families, our feeds and our communities. As Todd Rose writes in “Collective Illusions,” the most important thing we can do is continue having real conversations.

Chelsey Hauge-Zavaleta, Ph.D., is an educator, feminist researcher and digital content creator who studies how social media shapes parenting and girls’ autonomy. She runs an online parenting platform focused on raising confident, critically thinking girls in the digital age.