Maybe I’m just being too forgiving, but I don’t have an issue with this headline. For me, something being clickbait or not comes down to whether I have to open the article to get an overview or if I can get it from the headline alone. In this case, I’d say it’s the latter. You are more than welcome to your own opinion on that.
Well, every article or story want you to read the whole thing, otherwise newspapers and magazines would cut themselves down to only headlines. In my opinion, headlines like this one give you an overview, and give you enough to decide if you’d want to read more, for details, context etc., whereas ‘clickbait’ headlines don’t even give you that, and you have to click to find out whether you want to read more or not. This title still tells you who (Boebert), what (laughed at), where (House floor), and why (fact checked), even if not when, so covers a lot of the vital information you’d want, even if slightly exaggerating the extent.
I mean, it’s exaggerated the situation, but to my mind clickbait is things like ‘you won’t believe what happened to Lauren Boebert’, something that doesn’t really give you anything to go on without reading. This, on the other hand, tells you pretty much all you need to know, other than the specifics of the fact checking, even if it is a touch sensationalised.
I would argue that you couldn’t really get much less clickbait-y than the headline here. The only detail it leaves out is what the actual fact that was checked is, and that’s because that explanation wouldn’t fit in a title.
Frivolity makes absolute sense to describe the suit as frivolous, but just makes it sound a bit too lackadaisical for my liking.