clickbait
Clickbait is a text or a thumbnail link that is designed to attract attention and to entice users to follow that link and read, view, or listen to the linked piece of online content, being typically deceptive, sensationalized, or otherwise mis ...
, launched in May 2013.John Hermann of BuzzFeed described ViralNova as a connection between "the dark internet — chain-letter internet — and Facebook".
Run by Scott DeLong, ViralNova was sold to Zealot Networks on 9 July 2015 for $100 million. Zealot sold ViralNova to BumpClick, in April 2017 Function(x) announced that it was buying BumpClick for $25M. The lower value reflected declining site visitors.