Too Much Nick

“But the practice does reflect something that’s bugged me for a while about BuzzFeed and the Reddit-Tumblr-4chan matrix from which its list-compiling side springs: The explosion of people happily sharing images and text completely void of context. There’s a stupid disinterest in the story behind whatever shiny internet thing has gone viral now, as if knowing more would ruin the mysterious viralness of the thing. BuzzFeed has, either knowingly or accidentally, capitalized on this by obscuring the origins of its lists—both facts taken from old-school journalistic sources, and ideas found among newfangled meme-creators. Certainly, a clean list free of links and credits heightens the impact, makes it more of a black box.”