14 of the 50 threads on the front page of CHATTER have "thread" in the title, and out of those 14, 8 are in the top 10 threads in order of most-recently replied to.
If changed to sorted by amount of replies, there are now 16 threads with the word "thread" in the title, and 7 are in the top ten.
If changed to sorted by amount of views, there are now 18 threads with the word "thread," and and 7 are in the top ten.
My conclusion: threads that explicitly explain that they are thread will be inexplicably popular, whereas ones that don't scare and confuse the people of the internet, and are thus shunned (or and/or exiled).