The eclipse has been lasting for a long time
On Earth, it will be two minutes poorly counted, but on planet Journalism, on the other hand, the clickbait moon has long since planted itself in the middle of the sun's light path of criteria. This need to try to capture the attention of the congregation with content – a terrible word, when it displaces information– leads you to stumble upon headlines like “Experts agree: this is how you should dress to observe the solar eclipse” (El Español). Or also: “If you are going to see the eclipse on August 12, there is a dress code: «In the dark, reddish-orange colors will disappear» (Infobae). If I wear reddish-orange, can I be seen through? Will my intestines be visible? Well, I wouldn't like that; neither I nor, I fear, anyone else. Then we have pieces like “What no one is telling you about the solar eclipse” (La Razón). Spoiler: there are a dozen similar headlines and, to no one's surprise, they explain things that you can also find in the other 22,374 articles that have been written on the subject.
Other media exploit the ancestral fear of unusual natural phenomena. TV Azteca's headlines read “Nostradamus's worrying prophecy about the great solar eclipse,” but don't worry, inside, the text admits that “There is no direct evidence that Nostradamus predicted this specific eclipse,” and there is also no trace of the alleged worrying prophecy. Or “Tremble, the total solar eclipse is coming: from fear of the end of the world to anxiety about radiation” (Abc). But, at least, it has science behind it, because the landscape is full of (let's say) news like “What the solar eclipse has in store for you, according to your sign and ascendant” (La Nación). I hope that for us Aries it holds an extra dose of patience: just thinking that next year's will be “the eclipse of the century” makes me start wishing Nostradamus was right for once, damn it.
