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I Used to Write for the Odyssey Online
12:14 PM
I've always wanted to write and have my voice heard. Sometimes, I've wanted to write and not cared if my voice was heard. I write to write, and I write because I enjoy it. Whether or not people are hearing my words doesn't really matter to me. But people hearing them, honestly, is a bit of a plus that I enjoy and would like.
So back in February sometime, I had a friend join the many college writers who publish on The Odyssey website. I read her article multiple times. One, because she is my friend and she is a spectacular writer, and I hadn't read anything she had written in quite a long time. I wanted to enjoy her words and thoughts after such a long break from them. And two, I read it because I was interested in the topic and it hit home with me. I read the article so much that it struck some sort of chord...I want to do that, too. For months on end I had been looking at writing positions for online blogging platforms that I enjoyed where multiple writers shared their thoughts and stories, and things that mattered most to them. Because I like blogging, I like writing, I like having my voice heard, and the Internet is a great way to accomplish that.
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For about six weeks, I wrote for The Odyssey, and I enjoyed it quite a bit. I was getting my thoughts out there and even though my reader base wasn't huge, I knew some of my family was reading it and a few of my friends. Though the shares weren't outstanding on all the stories, I could assume since it was on the Internet that it was at least being read by some. Heck, a few stories even had shares that weren't from my parent, friends, or other family members—something I was proud of. Even if my stories weren't going crazy like the rest of the stories were from certain writers at my university, I was still enjoying myself because I was writing, and that was something that made me continue to plan out a story and write on a weekly basis. I expected growth in the coming weeks to months.
These past two weeks though I've decided that I don't want to write anymore—at least, not for The Odyssey. Most of this stems from the fact that I got an email from an editor last week saying an article I had published—not once, but twice—hadn't been published at all. Which, to say the least, was a bit annoying. Maybe there was a glitch in the system, who knows. But it's rubs you the wrong way just a little bit when you know you did something and are being told like a child that you didn't. Which, to me, was the tone that came across. It was the tone of my mom found out I hadn't done something she had told me to do three hours ago, and now I had been caught. Then, later that same week, I got a following email. This email, put short, blatantly stated that my articles weren't getting enough shares.
Now, I knew when I started this whole thing it was a competitive, unpaid internship. The only incentive there was to write well and try and get a lot of shares was the $20 you could possibly earn if you had the most shares out of everyone else who wrote at your university that week. But I had seen articles hidden within the depths of places like The Huffington Post online that had as little as one comment and a few shares. So I thought, so what if my article doesn't get shared a ton? At least it's on the web. But when I received that email I realized just how much of a popularity contest writing for The Odyssey is. It's not about the writing and getting your name out there, and reporting on things you like or find interesting or the current events—not really, anyway. It's about who can get the most shares on an article and make the editors proud because our university is getting a bit of extra attention compared to the others.
For Northern Arizona University, most of the writers who write for The Odyssey are either a part of ASNAU (The Associated Students of Northern Arizona)—the "voice" of the students on campus—or are a part of a sorority. These two groups of people have a lot of backing, if you think about it. They're part of large, connected groups that can instantly share an article even if the content isn't something that they're interested. And they'll do this because they're friends with the author. Being in groups like this creates instant friends.
I'm a quiet person who likes to keep to myself and likes my small group of inner circle friends. I make connections when I need them, and I'll make outside acquaintances. But I'm not big on having a ton of friends. So obviously, my stories would only be shared by those family members who keep up to date with me, and my close friends. And even though I'm all over social media, I may not always report on things that my followers find interesting. So my stories aren't always shared. These are things that don't bother me. I know as an individual, I may not always appeal to a mass. But apparently it bothers the editor who was in charge of me, because my articles weren't "popular" enough. Last time I checked, I wasn't in an internship for a popularity contest. I write for me and for my pleasure, and if others happen to take pleasure in it as well, then the more the merrier. If someone can't respect that...well, I don't really want to play their games.
Does this make me a quitter? I'll leave that up to you to decide. But personally, I don't think so. After realizing that writing for The Odyssey felt like a popularity contest, I took a few days to really mull over everything. Was I getting paid for this position? No. Yes, there is incentive to try and get a story shared the most...but does that always mean someone will read or enjoy the story? Not necessarily. Did that bother me? No, because I was writing for myself. I actually didn't really care about the $20, I cared about my name being on a popular platform. Apparently this all bothered the editor, though.
Writing shouldn't be about popularity. It should be about content, and in some cases, creativity. I realize that on news websites and other blogging platforms, it may be important to have a lot of viewership. But I wasn't being paid for this, and my livelihood wasn't reliant upon this position. So...I stopped writing for The Odyssey. Does that make me a quitter? Well, yes, I did quit. But I didn't take this position lightly. I treated it as if it were a job, despite not being paid, and I put a lot of my heart and personal thoughts into it. So metaphorically, I don't believe I actually quit.
These past two weeks though I've decided that I don't want to write anymore—at least, not for The Odyssey. Most of this stems from the fact that I got an email from an editor last week saying an article I had published—not once, but twice—hadn't been published at all. Which, to say the least, was a bit annoying. Maybe there was a glitch in the system, who knows. But it's rubs you the wrong way just a little bit when you know you did something and are being told like a child that you didn't. Which, to me, was the tone that came across. It was the tone of my mom found out I hadn't done something she had told me to do three hours ago, and now I had been caught. Then, later that same week, I got a following email. This email, put short, blatantly stated that my articles weren't getting enough shares.
Now, I knew when I started this whole thing it was a competitive, unpaid internship. The only incentive there was to write well and try and get a lot of shares was the $20 you could possibly earn if you had the most shares out of everyone else who wrote at your university that week. But I had seen articles hidden within the depths of places like The Huffington Post online that had as little as one comment and a few shares. So I thought, so what if my article doesn't get shared a ton? At least it's on the web. But when I received that email I realized just how much of a popularity contest writing for The Odyssey is. It's not about the writing and getting your name out there, and reporting on things you like or find interesting or the current events—not really, anyway. It's about who can get the most shares on an article and make the editors proud because our university is getting a bit of extra attention compared to the others.
For Northern Arizona University, most of the writers who write for The Odyssey are either a part of ASNAU (The Associated Students of Northern Arizona)—the "voice" of the students on campus—or are a part of a sorority. These two groups of people have a lot of backing, if you think about it. They're part of large, connected groups that can instantly share an article even if the content isn't something that they're interested. And they'll do this because they're friends with the author. Being in groups like this creates instant friends.
I'm a quiet person who likes to keep to myself and likes my small group of inner circle friends. I make connections when I need them, and I'll make outside acquaintances. But I'm not big on having a ton of friends. So obviously, my stories would only be shared by those family members who keep up to date with me, and my close friends. And even though I'm all over social media, I may not always report on things that my followers find interesting. So my stories aren't always shared. These are things that don't bother me. I know as an individual, I may not always appeal to a mass. But apparently it bothers the editor who was in charge of me, because my articles weren't "popular" enough. Last time I checked, I wasn't in an internship for a popularity contest. I write for me and for my pleasure, and if others happen to take pleasure in it as well, then the more the merrier. If someone can't respect that...well, I don't really want to play their games.
Does this make me a quitter? I'll leave that up to you to decide. But personally, I don't think so. After realizing that writing for The Odyssey felt like a popularity contest, I took a few days to really mull over everything. Was I getting paid for this position? No. Yes, there is incentive to try and get a story shared the most...but does that always mean someone will read or enjoy the story? Not necessarily. Did that bother me? No, because I was writing for myself. I actually didn't really care about the $20, I cared about my name being on a popular platform. Apparently this all bothered the editor, though.
Writing shouldn't be about popularity. It should be about content, and in some cases, creativity. I realize that on news websites and other blogging platforms, it may be important to have a lot of viewership. But I wasn't being paid for this, and my livelihood wasn't reliant upon this position. So...I stopped writing for The Odyssey. Does that make me a quitter? Well, yes, I did quit. But I didn't take this position lightly. I treated it as if it were a job, despite not being paid, and I put a lot of my heart and personal thoughts into it. So metaphorically, I don't believe I actually quit.
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