The internet is obsessed with Game Of Thrones, and with the long-awaited series finale airing tonight, we could post pretty much anything at all about the show and get tens of millions of valuable page views. However, we are steadfastly committed to unique, original content at ClickHole, and we refuse to give into cheap traffic ploys, which is why we’re foregoing anything GoT-related to bring you this nice list of charming decorative placemats.
1. Nothing wrong with this nicely made placemat! On a lesser website, you’d be looking at drivel like “The Definitive Ranking Of All Daenerys Targaryen’s Braids” or “Five Times Davos Seaworth Was The Lord Commander Of Side-Eye,” but we hold ourselves to a higher standard here at ClickHole, and some flash-in-the-pan television event isn’t going to change that.
2. Game Of Thrones mania is at such a fever pitch that we could probably rake in 50 grand in ad impressions by simply posting a single uncaptioned picture of Kit Harington. Hell, even the guy who played Jojen Reed would rack up crazy numbers right now. That we’ve posted this simple yet elegant placemat instead is as clear an articulation of our core values as we could ever possibly give you.
3. Nice colors on this one. Would reposting a few videos from Sophie Turner’s Instagram have brought in more traffic? Absolutely. If you only care about engagement metrics, low-hanging fruit like that is the way to go. Yet here we are, diligently finding you interesting placemats that will earn us no revenue whatsoever and will honestly probably cost us a good chunk of change—we have to license the rights to all these images, y’know. How many other websites would do the same?
4. If you genuinely want someone to show you the same three GIFs of Cersei drinking wine or tell you that Amy Klobuchar is the Qhorin Halfhand of the 2020 Democratic primary, we won’t stop you, and you can certainly find that stuff on pretty much any other website. We chose the path of editorial integrity a long time ago, and if it means we have to admire this placemat’s understated sophistication in obscurity, so be it.
5. Just imagine eating a nice Thanksgiving dinner on top of this lovely placemat. Yum! Do you think a hugely viral post speculating on Tyrion’s odds of survival in the finale will retain even a shred of meaning by Thanksgiving? By Labor Day? Next week? Not a chance!
6. Maybe if we had written a list of eight times Qyburn had Big Dick Energy, it would have trended on Twitter. These placemats definitely won’t. But in a few days’ time, after all the internet’s viral Game Of Thrones content has faded away like so many stars against the sunrise, the rustic charm of this decorative placemat will endure. Sacrificing guaranteed virality is a price we’re willing to pay to bring you the fresh, tasteful content you know us for, and as long as this list showed you some neat placemats you probably wouldn’t have seen otherwise, it will have been more successful in our eyes than all the viral Game Of Thrones articles combined.
