As you can plainly see, I write for Odyssey. I don't typically get paid for my articles, but I love to write, so I still do it. I write for fun. Because I enjoy it.
Most Odyssey teams are linked to a school (college or university) and that is where they pull their group of writers from. Our Odyssey team is always looking for new members, both as writers and as photographers, so we recruit. Typically, through a post on social media, we attempt to get the word out about Odyssey and what we do. I was recruiting this past week via a Facebook group for our school and got a very inaccurate response I wish to address.
Because of this posting and my reply, I've been temporarily banned from writing in the group. I'm being punished because people are ignorant. To be quite honest, I feel like it's another slap in the face from a school I poured my heart into.
When telling my teammates about what happened, a few of them chimed in on this issue. Here is what they had to say:
"I always tell people I used my articles as my portfolio, which I do, because there is a link for all of us to send someone to that wants to see our work. "
"When I told someone I was starting to write for Odyssey they said something similar. However, I asked if they ever looked at the articles or just read the titles and they couldn't say they read anything past the titles."
"When Creators sign up they do it for fun or experience which in a way is its own form of payment, but to confuse it with clickbait is crazy. Odyssey allows writers to have fun and get their thoughts out there in the world, and it is a great opportunity to grow from that and become professional writers one day. Clickbait should never be used when it comes to the articles. Titles used are what the article is about. So if that is clickbait, then basically any book that has a catchy title is "clickbait" so to speak."
Before you accuse Odyssey of clickbait, learn what clickbait really is. Clickbait is when someone hides information from the reader in the "blurb" so that the reader is forced to click the link to understand the full article. We at SNHU Odyssey are not writers who use clickbait to get page views. We are promoting a college we attend or have graduated from because we feel strongly about getting our words heard.
When discussing if an article should be removed, or a page should be taken down, Facebook classifies clickbait as the following:
Pages should avoid headlines that "withhold information required to understand the content of the article" and headlines that "exaggerate the article to create misleading expectations." If a Page stops posting clickbait and sensational headlines, their posts will stop being impacted by this change.
Odyssey does not do this. We sometimes do what is called a hot take or fire opinion, but the most pertinent information is still in the Headline. Occasionally satire articles are a bit less honest, but the point in them is to be funny. In that case, our Headlines are still as close to accurate as we can make them without giving away the punchline.
The bottom line is: you always know what you are getting into when you see an Odyssey article!
