Opportunity that becomes exploitation resembles an abusive relationship: often subtle to watchers and rarely convinced to victims.
The Odyssey does not offer bridges but its business model is certainly predatory, parasitic, and may very well be the most pervasive of its model amongst college students.
This is a website, a company, which does not create any content. Instead, college students submit articles which are published alongside advertisements generating revenue. Per campus and each week, one student is selected to earn a whopping $20 if their article is the most shared across social media venues. All remaining dollars are taken in by the owners of The Odyssey. The owners who, again, create no content.
The Odyssey is marketed to students as an opportunity to develop a professional portfolio of writing as well as small-time employment—yes, employment. To join the local campus division, you begin by clicking on the ‘Employment’ tab of their website. However, for a job that has absolutely no guaranteed wage or contract whatsoever, it’s very hard to see where the opportunity actually lies.
If the sole pursuit of students is to have their writings published, make a blog, because these websites are marketing what I have coined the decorated scrapmetal con.
While it may appear that you are garnering notoriety by having works published, the true goal of the website is to profit on pages of advertisements which are shared on social media for others to see as much as possible—your text is merely garnish. You are trying to make scrapmetal look pleasing.
Sure, some employers probably want those skills in somebody, but from the students I've seen who've submitted pieces to The Odyssey or similar websites like the Tab, they are looking for genuine growth as a writer. Sisyphus would sooner roll his boulder up the hill: the only advice students receive is on how to make headlines more clickbaity (appealing) and the only marketability gained is the ability to make scrapmetal look artistic.
The very crux of my frustration with these services is not their duplicitous, chasing-the-twenty-dollar-dragon structure, however, but the outright advantage they have on targeting young, inexperienced college students. Let me be clear: The Odyssey and others like it are thieving money from writers in using their works, profiting on them, and guaranteeing no pay.
Imagine any employer whatsoever doing such a thing and labour unions would riot. Imagine a contractor building a house and then not receiving any pay for it. Imagine a teacher only earning a paycheck if they had the highest attendance for that week, which is actually a flawed comparison in that attendance is a prerequisite for learning. Even service workers gain a minimum wage aside from tips.
Penn State and other campuses needs to act against the manipulation of this market and, in doing so, provide better opportunities for burgeoning journalistic and literary students.
If Penn State were to utilize its own infrastructure to allow students not only to publish their own material, but to profit from the advertisements themselves, it would create not only better incentive for students to be productive in writing but also give them actual experience in it as well. With our ample resources, Penn State could expand to allow publishing advice or scholarly opportunities, and in doing so, label Penn State as a home of productive and ethical student-driven authorship.
Regardless of details, any solution needs to handle the abusive relationship taking place: it must provide resources to those vulnerable and educate that scams rarely ever say ‘Snake Oil’.
