Around the month of June, a close friend of mine had told me she was writing for Odyssey because she was going into journalism. The way she talked about her articles with passion, I thought to myself, "Hey, you have a lot to say. Why not say it on the internet?" So, after some thinking about writing, I decided to jump on the Odyssey train and begin writing so I could get my voice out there.
As I began writing for Odyssey, I was an optimist for every article I was gonna write. I had planned out everything, writing down which ideas I wanted to get across with the voice and perspective I had. I was brainstorming ideas about exploring step-family representation in media, what it truly means to be an extrovert, and how some people can get their point across with text versus speech. I spent time working out well-crafted titles that would catch the readers' eye.
It wasn't long, as I was writing my first article, "Why I Planned My Wedding Instead Of Writing This" I came into a lot of complex problems that I didn't think was a problem. I thought they would edit my grammar and things of the such, maybe offer new ideas, which they did do. But when I was asked to change my title from "Open World Games Are Ruining My Mental Health" to "I Planned My Wedding Instead Of Writing This," I felt as though part of my voice was being taken away. I worked hard on clever titles, and this was one of my favorites, but it did help my article so I let it slide.
A title is what draws a person perusing the Facebook to come and read the article you have written -- an invitation for listening to someone else's voice and perspective, if you will. I worked hard on my unorthodox and cleverly thought titles, but they soon became less of my titles and more of what Odyssey wanted them to be. They would much rather create discussion through questioning and things like "Why I Do This..." rather than shear stupidity that showcases who I am as a writer and Odyssey Content Creator.
Many Odyssey article titles follow the same type of formula. If this was math, it would be "Why + Self-Reference x Thing I Did Once ÷ But That's Okay = Maximum Shares." A basic title formula that they don't formally teach us, but rather pound into us by showing us highly shared articles that all sound the same.
As the summer went on, I began to change and adapt to more of Odyssey's style of writing rather than my own. What I thought was appealing and worth a lot of shares wasn't that much. Now, that might've been because I'm not the best writer, but my voice didn't feel like mine.
One of my articles, "Why We're Not Allowed To Say F*ck," was a research project I did fall quarter of my freshman year. One of the points I was making in the article was that we really aren't allowed to say those words because they are looked down upon. I didn't hold back from saying some vulgar words. I mean, that's what it was about, but when I turned it in, a lot of the words were censored. Now, I could see why some of them were censored because words like "f*ck" and "sh*t" aren't the best of words. But I said slurs like "fag" and "bitch," words that have negative connotations towards a specific groups of people, went uncensored. Personally, I feel as though if any words were to be censored, it should've been those two. I was going to write a piece on selective censorship to follow up my thoughts on it, but I never got around to it.
Odyssey is a great way for people who want to get their voice heard and out online, among Facebook moms and Pinterest. But the constant feeling that I was out of place among a group of people writing about their trips to Kenya or being a Slytherin was always apparent. I was writing about swearing, Pokemon Go, theatre majors, and other unorthodox subjects.
Odyssey isn't for me, but that's okay. I'm not someone to write about my mission trip or experience being a queer Hispanic in the Pacific Northwest. My summer with Odyssey is coming to a close. To quote someone who changed themselves for another: "summer lovin' happened so fast; summer lovin' had me a blast."
