Odyssey. Do you mean the poem? The Honda Odyssey van? Oh wait, you mean that writing thing you do each week?
When I first heard of Odyssey, I thought that it was the best new thing. I saw it all over Facebook and heard of all these colleges that wrote for it. It was someplace special where people shared their voice and wrote a variety of pieces. As time moved on, so did Odyssey and my reasons to be a part of it. However, with the growth, came the expected criticism that comes with anything new and different.
"Writers are so uneducated and falsifying information" to "That opinion doesn't even matter", "This article has no content" and on and on. But I think it is important to realize that if it wasn't coming from Odyssey, would you really be judging with such criticism? No one ever said that Odyssey was a journalistic platform, it was everyone else who assumed it as such and then judged upon that. Odyssey gives the freedom to write about anything and everything; whatever is important, holds an interest, or is a thought you've been pondering. Some of the content created is the same thing you could find on another platform such as Seventeen, Vogue, or The Huffington Post. People on Odyssey create what they want to, whether that be a news story, lifestyle, or a blog like post. Why is it that we always get the hate just because you don't understand what Odyssey has become?
It is a platform just like the rest who each week puts out content for the world to see. We are all different people and have different desires for why we write. You have a contributing range of opinions, ideas, ethics, etc. Odyssey may mean something more special than to others, but do know that it is a platform that is not like many others, who gives everyone the opportunity to share what they think on a more open and far reaching platform. We may be something different than what is previously seen as an appropriate outlet, but just because we're different doesn't give you full reign to critique with hate based on assumptions you brought on by yourself.
