How offensive is too offensive?

10 replies
While I was writing an article today, I noticed that one particular sentence was quite offensive. It was straightaway calling a section of people fat. It got me thinking whether such tricks succeed in creating the "interest" in the readers to keep going forward. Have you ever attempted garnering interest by invoking controversy? If yes, did it work? Regardless of your experience, what are your thoughts about this?
#offensive
  • Profile picture of the author Claire Koch
    seems as if you have already answered your own question rewrite. controversy works on blogs coupled with trends. i don't usually submit a controversial article tho to a third party site. i try to lean on the side of causious in matters such as that. maybe others feel differently
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    • Profile picture of the author Daniel Evans
      I use contoversy often in my weightlifting niche.

      I know the audience can handle it, it has more impact and allows me to vent frustrations at the same time since I'm not too keen on the info that plauges the sector.

      I generally don't begin sentences with "In my opinion" / "I think" etc neither since it goes without saying and softens the message.
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  • Profile picture of the author Wilton White
    Would you feel comfortable enough to take the "heat" of the controversy in person? That is, would you be comfortable saying the same things that you write in person and in front of an audience that includes the people you believe you may have offended?

    If so, then you could probably be successful in using the controversy to your advantage. Whether it be perceived as "right" or "wrong", I suppose you are taking a stand to emphasize a point.

    If you would not feel comfortable in my example above, then you would have to determine if your skin is thick enough to handle any negative response you may receive--that is, unless you don't read the responses. You would have to defend your responses and expect them to be taken in a bad context from time to time.

    All of this is probably a "worst case" scenario, and you may not encounter any issues to worry about.

    Good luck.
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  • IMHO,
    In an article about ‘people that stuff themselves toward an early death’ calling them fat is just a way to push your point. If someone would stop reading it, it probably wasn’t meant to happen…

    On the other hand,
    If you write ‘fat Irish’ on an article about ‘saint Patrick day celebrations’ then of course many people would think it is offensive (not only the irish btw).
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  • Profile picture of the author Alexa Smith
    Banned
    Originally Posted by Raindance View Post

    Have you ever attempted garnering interest by invoking controversy?
    Yes, I do that most days.

    Originally Posted by Raindance View Post

    If yes, did it work?
    Certainly ... I'm in article marketing, and "controversy gets you published".

    Originally Posted by Raindance View Post

    Regardless of your experience, what are your thoughts about this?
    I think "controversy" is - at least in principle - totally different from "offending people". I deliberately try to be controversial in my articles, and try never to offend anyone.
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  • Profile picture of the author Gerald Arno
    Banned
    There are definitely a couple of things that work when writing an article. Here are a few thoughts that can help you to write articles that are not only attracting, but also extremely converting:

    -Readers like to see headlines that are about them. Here it´s important to realize that you don´t have to state their name or anything like that. But a headline such as:

    3 Obvious Reasons Why You Suck At Online Marketing

    is a lot more attention grabbing to the reader than something like:

    Best ideas for making money today.

    -Quite frequently, I have found out that headlines that are very negative seem to work and convert extremely well. However, that doesn´t necessarily mean that you have to show up with a negative headline for every single article you write. You can still vary it to get a decent balance.
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  • Profile picture of the author peptone
    Controversy gets attention but there are ways of being controversial without causing offence to people. That is unnecessary.
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  • Profile picture of the author JeanneLynn
    Overweight people can be easily offended. I think they're very sensitive to insults. My mother has a perfect figure and she's 65 years old. She looks way younger than me (I'm 43). She exercises for several hours a day and has to "force feed" herself to maintain her desired weight. She's terrified to even lose a drop of weight because she thinks her face may develop wrinkles.

    So, she'll say to overweight people that we know, "Oh, I had to eat 2 hamburgers, fries, ice cream and 10 peanut butter cups last night because I lost another pound. I gotta gain back that pound I lost." And my sister and I (who were not blessed with her good metabolism and thin figure) are always embarrassed when she does this. And Mom doesn't do it to be mean, she's just clueless as to what it feels like to be an overweight person (mentally and physically). She's never been overweight; she weighed 90 pounds on her wedding day. She's always had to eat like a horse to keep weight on. So she doesn't realize how most overweight people have struggled their entire lives to try to look like her. I sure wish I would have gotten her genes!

    I guess it depends on the actual wording of the sentence, but heavy people can be very sensitive to rude comments about their weight. I think you need to be careful that you don't upset your readers.
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  • Profile picture of the author JimDucharme
    When I was in radio an old talk vet once told me: "You don't get many callers talking about sunshine and puppies."

    Which is why talk radio is the intelectual equivilent of professional wrestling.

    Provoking thought and discussion is always good and sometimes that means controvery. However, I agree with Alexa that there's a big difference betwen controversy/provoking discussion and being offensive. Even a popular ******* is still an *******. The question is whether being one is worth being the other.

    Regards,
    jim
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  • Profile picture of the author Raindance
    Thanks for your responses, guys. I understand it well now that controversy does help. I was combining offending someone with controversy, because a controversy starts by saying something which the reader may not agree with, possibly even saying something against him/her.
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