With more than 8,000 writers at 600 schools, it's difficult to find someone on a college campus who hasn't at least heard of Odyssey, let alone seen a million and one articles pop up on his or her Facebook newsfeed. As with everything that is relatively known and relevant in modern culture, Odyssey has developed its own line of haters to combat its rising success. I've read posts about it, seen endless Tweets and have had personal conversations with people who think that what I do every week for Odyssey is garbage and that I'm unoriginal and am most likely a poor writer. Well, I've heard you. I can (almost) see where you're coming from, but this listicle-writing, basic, middle-class white college girl has a few things that she would like to say.
First of all, I am not a journalist and what I do on Odyssey is not necessarily journalism. Don't think I'm disillusioned about that; I don't write for Odyssey because I want to cover hard-hitting stories and pretend that I write for The New York Times. If you look at the About page on Odyssey, here are the first few lines:
Odyssey is a social content platform that discovers and shares a chorus of millennial voices, amplified organically through social media. The platform inspires thousands of writers to contribute and share what matters to them and enables content to find its most relevant content organically.
Odyssey publishes social content, things that its own writers want to write about, not news. You're never going to be satisfied with Odyssey if you look at it from a journalistic perspective, because that's not what we're trying to accomplish.
What are we trying to accomplish? It depends on who you ask. Some of us are trying to get our ideas heard, ideas that we're passionate about. Rather than ranting on via Facebook post or blog, Odyssey gives an opportunity to college students to voice their minds on a published site, which is an opportunity hard to come by for millennials while they're still in college. Some are aspiring writers who want exposure and experience; and when it comes to writing, any sort of practice or expression of creativity is beneficial, regardless of format. Finally, some write for Odyssey because it's legitimately fun to do so. Exploring the internet for the GIFs I'm going to use in my next article is a great break from schoolwork, and I'm enjoying myself while learning skills that will help me down the road.
I'm learning how to better market myself because an article needs self-promotion in order to be successful. I'm learning how to consistently meet weekly deadlines. As the editor-in-chief for the Providence College branch, I'm learning how to manage writers, how to give interviews, how to hire and how to let people go. Is the content that I'm producing earth-shattering? No. Are the skills that I'm gaining through this experience invaluable for my future? Absolutely.
If you don't want to read Odyssey because you think that you're above it, congratulations. I'm glad that you're so culturally and intellectually superior that you feel that I'm beneath you. If you're tired of reading endless open letters and "25 Reasons Why You Should Be Single In College," you can keep scrolling and not click on my link. But the reason that my link is on your newsfeed in the first place is because someone saw it and related to it enough on a personal level that they felt the need to share something that I wrote with the world, and I think that's really cool.
If no one actually liked or shared what Odyssey produced, then the advertisers would pull out, and Odyssey would eventually go under. But that's not what's happening. Odyssey has grown exponentially since I joined the staff this summer, and that growth alone is a reflection of how people actually relate to what we do.
An open letter about someone's ex-boyfriend may seem horribly generic, and a list of reasons why you're ready for winter break is probably something you've seen a thousand times; but that open letter has a personal touch that helped someone else get through a tough spot and that list made someone laugh when they were about to cry from stress. Our writers return to those formats because they're the formats that work. If you're the type of person who rolls their eyes when an Odyssey article crosses your newsfeed, then you're not the person that we're trying to reach.
Yes, sometimes I will get frustrated because my articles sometimes get published with extra typos or grammar mistakes that weren't in the original draft. Mistakes are made along the way, and Odyssey certainly isn't perfect. Not all of our articles are fantastic. Not all of our writers are on the same skill level, but that happens everywhere. You can find negativity in anything, just as you can find the good.
We're just trying to gain some experience while having a little fun; and if you think that what I do is trash, I will gladly show myself to the curb while you look for the next thing to throw out.
