This past week I saw someone on my Facebook feed who was quite grateful he found a way to turn off all mentions of Odyssey in his newsfeed. As someone who writes for Odyssey, I honestly cannot blame him. It is an important part of writing that one is allowed to critique their own publishers without fear of retribution. My belief is that people who dislike Odyssey are not unjustified in their opinions. Let's dive into why.

Odyssey in theory is a great idea. College campuses across the country employing young, thoughtful and motivated writers, to share their thoughts and opinions and create viral content that betters the public discussion on important topics. That is a big and noble goal. In theory, it connects millennials with important things to say on issues of social justice, politics, human rights and other subjects. Whether conservative, liberal, libertarian or somewhere in between everyone has an opinion to share and have a structure where people can exchange ideas within their own college network is smart. It encourages conversation and reduces the ability to be a "keyboard warrior" since chances are you might know who wrote the article. So what is the issue? Why do people have a problem with this?

It comes down to the execution of this strategy. Instead of the theory I just laid out, Odyssey has become a click bait database, filled with articles that have little to zero substance but deliver on page views and therefore advertising revenue. The top three articles of the last three weeks are all a list of signs that one went to a certain high school or university. This is not exactly what I had in mind when I applied to write for Odyssey.

However, because the reward for the top article is based on page views and social media shares, writers produce content which they know will garner attention. These are articles that people find relatable and easily digestible. So instead of an in-depth piece on why Barack Obama is seen as such a divisive figure, we get a set of Disney GIFs describing finals week at college. In a world where our social networks are grossly oversaturated with content, it is no surprise many people seek to weed out articles that do nothing to contribute to discussions on important issues.

Additionally, that over-saturation of content comes all at once, since articles are published countrywide on either a Monday or a Tuesday. When those articles are published, we are all encouraged to share them at peak times of social media traffic, usually falling between 6-10 p.m. on a Monday or Tuesday. Therefore, our newsfeed is bombed with Odyssey articles which can be annoying and unavoidable. If articles were staggered more heavily through the week, people might not be so frustrated with Odyssey because it would not seem so omnipresent in our online lives.

My last issue is that virtually anyone can write for Odyssey and it waters down content and writing quality. I am not even saying I necessarily should have been hired, however, I feel I did have strong writing samples and some experience to fall back on. Nonetheless, with new writers being hired all the time and the number of articles rising every week the writing quality inevitably declines due to a quality vs. quantity problems. This further contributes to the idea that people are being bombarded with Odyssey articles and forced to have them all over their newsfeed.

Personally, and this is sure to attract some unpopular opinions, most of what is written for Odyssey are unapologetic attempts to gain social media traction by reinforcing people's ideas and making them feel like someone understands them. Of course an article on why St. Lawrence is a great school will rack up page views. Many people who go to St. Lawrence will see the article, peruse it and feel like someone else understands them. This leads to them sharing it, other people feeling the same way, and so on. What has that article done? Has it introduced a new idea to the public consciousness? Has it highlighted an important issue? Probably not. Instead, it has reinforced people's idea that their (enter sports team, high school, college, profession) is the best through a series of "Office" quotes, gifs, or "Friday Night Lights" images.

For how critical I am, I admit I have fallen victim. I wrote a satirical resume for myself a few weeks ago and I saw it rack up likes and comments which is unusual for the content that I submit. I admit it felt good to see people paying attention to my article and telling me they laughed or enjoyed it. However like I just said, I did nothing to challenge someone's ideas, I did not introduce a new idea and I certainly did not challenge anyone to think differently about a subject. In short, I have done nothing to advance the public discussion on anything important, whether it is cultural, political or social. I am not perfect and it is an easy trap to fall into.

Despite these complaints that sound like they come from a man using a typewriter and smoking a corn cob pipe while grumbling at kids to get off my lawn, I will continue to write for Odyssey (assuming they do not fire me. Can I get fired if I'm not paid? Who knows) because I think there is hope.

There are millennials who take public discourse seriously and are seeking other people who do the same. I think it is an insult to millennials to deliver us watered down content that fails to challenge our minds. We can handle complex, well thought out and challenging content, many just assume that we do not want it.

So although my articles and others may not contain relatable "Parks and Recreation" quotes, I hope you'll read them, discuss them and challenge me because we need to take our media consumption into our own hands. To those who won't read this just because it is distributed through Odyssey, I understand where you're coming from.