My freshman year roommate hates The Odyssey Online. Maybe not all the time, but I am sure that there are many people who share her frustration. And I understand why.
She will often send me links to articles that circulate on Facebook with a quick wit and plentiful comments on how the argument in the article completely falls through. Many of the articles that get thousands of shares on Facebook can be strongly opinionated, and with the freedom to create and say anything on The Odyssey Online, these articles do not have to have a lot of evidence. If someone wants to rant, he or she can do so in an Odyssey article. Oftentimes, even if there is no evidence, people will share the rant, and empty words get the clicks.
When I first heard of the Odyssey, I saw another side of the popular articles -- the lists, Netflix references, and compilations of celebrity-culture jokes. I rarely saw any substance to the articles; they were, instead, just study breaks for college students. These articles are just Buzzfeed articles except under what appears to be a more dignified platform. All of the articles that were popular on The Odyssey Online began to look the same to me. They were all in list-form, they were all about college life, and they were rarely fully formed discussions. It makes sense to me now because writing in lists is easy to do, and reading lists is easy to follow.
Now, with a twisted change in fate, I am writing for the Odyssey. I wanted writing experience, and this platform is the way to begin. I now see the beauty in the freedom to write anything with the chance to improve my writing with an editor and a deadline. Most of the time, I want to publish fully fleshed articles about the thoughts that come into my head as one would in a blog. (Well, as fully fleshed as I can get in a fairly short article over one week of thinking.) I have written about people who walk through art museums and how to be a vegetarian, and I do not care if any one reads it. I am writing to write. Though I have to put every article on my Facebook page, I do not like to think about people reading them. However, if someone likes something I write, it is crazy to think that the Odyssey is what allowed that to happen.
I do not think about the articles that are going to be shared the most. While writing is about that, I am not going to change my writing into what people will surely read all the way through because it has flashy pictures and funny quotes and no long paragraphs. While the Odyssey appears like it is made up of these types of articles as my roommate often acknowledges, The Odyssey is also what allows many to write whatever they want, even if it goes unclicked.
So, to those who dislike the Odyssey: I get the way you think. Sometimes, what people like to read the most is empty and pointless. The articles that are shared the most may be the same recycled ideas over and over again. However, there is more behind the platform than what is just on Facebook.
