Recently, I have seen many articles and complaints critiquing the writers of Odyssey for being "privileged little girls and boys that don't know a thing about writing and are wasting their opportunities to write about something that matters." Odyssey has been ridiculed as redundant and "not real writing," while other critiques say that the site is simply white kids writing about why being white sucks. This type of broad and sweeping critique strikes me as closed-minded and offensive, generalizing an entire group of writers for a small group of peoples' articles. However, even if Odyssey isn't "real writing," why is that really anyone's concern? If you're looking for a heavy piece of writing on white supremacy or a detailed political commentary, you are simply looking in the wrong place.
Yes, on an off week, an Odyssey writer such as myself might write a fluff piece about how finals are getting the best of them or how to survive Valentine's Day when you're single. However, to say that each and every article written on this site is a piece of trash is a huge generalization that I'm confused as to why it needs to be made.
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Odyssey is not a political newspaper or a social justice forum or anything that will necessarily change the world. However, it does not pretend to be anything it is not. Odyssey is a bunch of college kids sharing their thoughts and feelings in an often humorous and lighthearted way on a forum that can be seen and shared by their peers. The writers are not all white, or all from the same background, and their writing really creates no reason to draw such conclusions. The option is always there to write about the necessity of feminism in our world or sexism at universities or racism in our country, but if that isn't what Odyssey is that week, why is it being ridiculed?
Just because writing on this particular site might not change the world, why does it have to? Not everything posted on the internet must have a deep intellectual meaning. And honestly, if you aren't interested in any of the content posted, simply don't click on it. Just like people have personal blogs, Odyssey is an opportunity to share ideas that interest the writer. This doesn't make them a journalist, but this also doesn't make them any less of a writer.
I'm sorry if humorous articles meant to be nothing more than that aren't deep enough for you, but Odyssey never claims to be anything more than it is. Writing is writing, and to generalize a site based on one or two poorly written articles is just as ignorant as it seems.
