I was eating lunch when the news hit that a “‘Walking Dead’ actress” had been implicated in mailing ricin-tinged letters to President Obama and New York Mayor Michael Bloomberg.
Then I clicked on the link: “Shannon who?” I thought.
Having seen every episode of the AMC zombie drama, it was a little jarring. For a supposed “Walking Dead” actress, I wouldn’t know who this woman was if she bit me.
To be fair, almost everyone spun that angle — not just Variety, but the Hollywood Reporter and Huffington Post and virtually any other site interested in traffic.
Welcome to the Search Engine Optimization Follies. See, it’s very simple. Pick a term likely to get a lot of traffic anyway, then use that. Say, George Clooney. I have met George Clooney, even interviewed George Clooney. I’m sure my posts would get more traffic if they were written by George Clooney, or at least offered tantalizing info about him.
But since I really have no excuse to write about George Clooney, it’s kind of gratuitous to use his name.
Which doesn’t stop anyone from trying — in the same way people picked the highest-profile credit associated with Shannon Rogers Richardson, “The Walking Dead,” and ran with that. Never mind that even the show’s former exec producer, Glen Mazzara, apparently had no idea who she is.
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