My first Odyssey article was published my last week of my senior year of high school. It received thousands of views, and I fell in love with the virality of the platform. After a few months of lots of (less successful) articles and a deepening excitement towards the website, I became the Editor in Chief of the community at my school. I had found a home in a platform that not only allowed, but encouraged me to tell my story, on a well-constructed stage with a packed audience.
Let’s get one thing straight right off the bat: Odyssey is not a journalism platform. They don’t claim to be. So it’s not fair to expect them to be producing high-quality journalism content. This isn't an "Odyssey isn't journalism, blah blah blah" article. Odyssey is a social platform for millennials to tell the stories of their lives in article format, and for other millennials (or anyone, really) to read and connect with them.
In theory, this sounds excellent. This sounds like a wonderful way to gain insight into the lives and minds of young people all around this country.
But Odyssey creators very often chase the “pageviews and shares” high and sacrifice actual storytelling and high-quality writing. At the end of the day, Odyssey is a business, and pageviews and shares are the way they stay that way, which is completely fair and understandable. But creators shouldn’t be getting comfortable with producing low-quality content simply because it fits into the algorithm of the platform.
This isn’t an article to bash Odyssey as a platform. It truly has meant so much to me, and I really have honed in on my voice as both a writer and a young person just by having a place like this to publish my writing.
It bothers me how easily this platform is thrown away in the chase for pageviews. Creators have an opportunity to put their work out there and really be seen. And it bothers me that that's so often overlooked because relatability is valued above creativity. Most creators aren't striving for great writing, they're striving for great audience engagement.
It’s hard to write a thought provoking or meaningful article every week. And that being said, there are plenty of great pieces of writing that aren’t either of those things. But as a creator, you should want to create great pieces of writing. You should want to tell stories in a way that makes them your own, not in a way that conveniently fits into a pre-tested and approved headline.
Odyssey creators: write bigger.
Don’t write about something for the sole reason that you know your entire hometown will relate to it. Don’t write something that has more .gifs than words, in a chase for readers that don't like to read.
Write about heartbreak and passion and the things that make you laugh. Write strong opinions. Write about things you research because you're interested in them. Write about the things that make you interesting. Write using words that are huge and strong and create stories on their own.
If you’ve decided to put yourself out there by becoming a content creator, you have to truly put yourself out there. You have to write things that might not get views or shares, simply because you feel compelled to write them. You have to really create.
You have to write bigger.
