Dear Odyssey Hater,
I would first off like to thank you for reading this. I’m not sure why you are since you hate the site and all it produces so much, but at the end of the day you are contributing to my page views which is a good thing for me. So, needless to say I don’t care that you hate the site, you’re helping me out. I have a question for you before I go on. Why do you continue to read The Odyssey if you hate it so much? Seriously, I’m curious. When I don’t like something I don’t give it any of my attention. I know seeing our articles posted is inevitable because many of your Facebook friends enjoy reading them and think they are worthy of being shared which is how they end up on your timeline. However, you don’t have to read them, just scroll on by. You do that to countless other posts anyway.
Alright, I’m not sure which of your many complaints to address so I’ll address the ones found in someone’s blog post, published recently. The post, An Open Letter to The Odyssey Online, comes from a Wordpress blog titled Whatimhere4. The writer expressed that The Odyssey does not allow people of all backgrounds to share their experiences and opinions on subjects. The writer then went on to generalize that “most, if not all of the writers come from the same background”. The Odyssey actually does allow people of all backgrounds to share their experiences and opinions on subjects. That’s the point. To say that we lack diversity is a pretty strong and incorrect statement. The Odyssey does not turn down people who are not white and privileged as the writer stated. Over 30 historically black universities and colleges have their own chapters of The Odyssey as well as at least 10 campuses where the majority of the population is Latino. Also, most of The Odyssey’s writers are early 20 year old college students because that’s who the platform wants to attract. The Odyssey wants to give us a chance to have our work published and to help us build a portfolio if writing is something we aim to pursue as a career.
In this same blog post the writer criticized (only) two very popular Odyssey articles and then built a generalization of The Odyssey off of (only) those two articles. The first one being I Am a College Student Against Free Tuition: Why Paying for College Isn’t a Burden. This student was explaining her unpopular opinion on why she thought college should not be free. Key word is opinion. It was her opinion. Like all of the articles are. Just because you don’t agree does not mean that the other party is wrong (because again, it’s opinion). The second article that was criticized was Why White Privilege is as Racist as it Sounds: Heads up I’m White and Do Not Consider Myself Privileged. The blogger thinks that there is a “fundamental misinterpretation of ‘privilege’” in the article and said that the article should not have been published. If it was not published, that would be prohibiting people from sharing their experiences and opinions on subjects. Like I said above, The Odyssey gives people of all backgrounds the opportunity to share their experiences and opinions on subjects (something that you said the platform failed to do).
If you are critical over the lack of liberal or conservative posts then you should look harder. I have not seen a staggering unequal ratio of either. Maybe you just have a staggering unequal ratio of liberal or conservative friends on Facebook. That is the primary way you are exposed to The Odyssey’s articles anyway. If you hate the lists, then don’t read them/don’t get caught up on them. I hate to tell you, but people do not want to read long articles anymore (the length of this is pushing it). We want our information fast. You definitely skim articles and books to find what you want. So having lists with the important points bolded is efficient and its what most people want.
Lastly, many of the editors at The Odyssey come from major publications. The editor for FIT worked at The Knot (the major bridal publication) prior to The Odyssey. Bam, there’s a connection for the future. So while you are sitting there complaining about how much you hate The Odyssey we, the writers, are building a portfolio and are making connections. You have an internship or connections too? Imagine what more you can do in your internship and how much more you can strengthen your connections if you used the energy you use to hate on this site in that area of your life. Overall, I personally, will never apologize for networking, building my portfolio, and for perfecting my skills. So, I’m not sorry that you hate this so much because like I said, it helps me out. Once again, thank you for clicking on this and thank you for clicking on any other Odyssey article. It helps us all out.
Sincerely,
Kaitlin
