[imacomputer2]

I wouldn't call that title linkbait or embarrassing. It's clever, fun, and obviously a joke. It doesn't hurt the article either. IMO in order to be linkbait it must pump up your excitement with very little substance. For example: "French Guy Goes To America. What He Learned About BuzzFeed Will Blow You Away!" would be linkbait. It excites the reader by over promising that they will have a strong reaction to the piece, but the article can never live up to the hype. We are rarely "blown away" by a blog post or news article.

Your title dips below inciting the reader; It's totally drained of any color or interest. It doesn't excite the reader at all. That is also a problem because reading should be fun AND informative.

It's only a title, but I think titles should have fun too.

[alexmayyasi]

Author here. While having fun coming up with titles, other options included:

This French Guy Hated on Blogs Back in 1835

and

People Have Been Hating on Buzzfeed For 180 Years

(I thought I already nixed the linkbait title!)

[PeterWhittaker]

Agreed. And the article is worth reading, many of the parallels strike me as legitimate.