6
votes
Why Plymouth has a population of zero, despite being the de jure capital of Montserrat
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- Title
- Why This Capital City Has a Population of Zero
- Authors
- Half as Interesting
- Duration
- 5:09
- Published
- May 16 2019
This is a very disappointingly clickbait video, with a clickbait title and very little actual content, particularly content that would suggest a video as a good medium. It is disappointing that so much online seems to be heading in this direction, and I wonder whether it might make sense to modify titles in these sorts of cases, or at least add a way of adding clickbait tags to posts.
To spare anyone looking at the comments from having to watch the video to find out what it is about: the video refers to Plymouth, the capital of the UK overseas territory of Montserrat, which was first evacuated for a few months in 1995 after nearby the Soufrière Hills erupted (initially with a phreatic eruption) and covered it in ash and debris, then permanently abandoned in 1997 after large eruptions caused a second evacuation before destroying most of the town with ash, lava, and other rocks (19 people died in this second series of eruptions). According to Wikipedia and this video, despite being abandoned and in an exclusion zone, Plymouth remains the de jure capital of Montserrat, with government activity moved to the town of Brades in the north.
With the exception of the around 20% of the time taken up for advertisements, a few quick diagrams trying to explain the eruptions in a few seconds, a few bad jokes, and what appear to be the results of some online image searches, that's most of the actual content of the video.
There are, however, other interesting elements. While Brades does appear to still be the de facto capital, the claim in the video that Plymouth is still the de jure capital "mostly because no one has gotten around to changing it" appears to be completely baseless, and possibly meant as a joke. Instead, Plymouth remains the de jure capital because the Montserrat and UK governments are trying to build a new capital at Little Bay, near Brades. This apparently has been considerably delayed by issues of mismanagement and possibly corruption, which resulted in the government-owned development company being dissolved in 2015.
Looking through government sites and elsewhere, it appears that the problem with Brades is that it doesn't have a reliable port: Plymouth apparently had the only one. In a recent statement about new construction from 2019, the point is made that "In 2016, [the Montserrat Port Authority] reported that 12% of vessels calling at the Montserrat Port were unable to berth due to rough seas" - an absurdly high chance of failure for what is routine in most places. The airport on the island was also destroyed, and replaced in 2005 by one with a runway half the length.
Just for the record, Half as Interesting is Wendover Productions side channel meant specifically for short (<5min) little factoid videos on interesting topics that aren't substantial enough to make full, in-depth videos about on his main channel. You added some additional context not fully covered in the video, which is appreciated, but IMO the title is only really "clickbait" for having omitted "de jure" in front of "Capital"... which I have now added.
In my opinion, any title that uses the "this X" phrasing to hide what the actual subject is should be rewritten (and I usually do this for my own submissions and sometimes others'). So for example if the title is "This vegetable might be good for you" and the article/video tells you that it's carrots, it should be re-titled as "Carrots might be good for you".
I haven't watched the video or anything here, but in this case, my rewrite would probably be something more like "Why Plymouth has a population of zero, despite being the de jure capital of Montserrat"
Fair enough, and I generally agree when it's super obnoxious. But at the same time, do titles really need to reveal all, leaving absolutely no room for mystery? Could a
monserrat.plymouthtopic tag be an appropriate middle ground?I think it depends if the mystery is part of the point of the content or not. Like if the whole video leads up to revealing something surprising, we shouldn't ruin that in the title. But if it's not—and it's obviously not if they immediately tell you what the "this" is—then the "mystery" is just for clickbait purposes.
That makes sense. I'll change the title to your previous suggestion.
p.s. I think some good examples of the mystery being part of the content itself are:
Why Are 96,000,000 Black Balls on This Reservoir?
Metal has no odor, so what are we smelling? | Making 1-octen-3-one