Ben Facey | Everyone is a journalist

At Face Value | How the success of publications like The Odyssey may not be as positive as it seems

By Ben Facey 04/17/16 10:58pm

Since deleting the Facebook app on my phone — something I suggest all of you do as well because it will add literally hours to your battery life — I rarely get the pleasure, well displeasure, of scrolling through my Facebook feed. In the rare occasions in which I do scroll through the feed, I have increasingly found a number of links to an online publication called “Odyssey.” In recent weeks, links from this website have literally overwhelmed my feed.

For those of you unfamiliar with this publication, Odyssey is the equivalent of an online newspaper full of blog posts. It touts itself as “a social content platform that discovers and shares a chorus of millennial voices,” and describes that it “is revolutionizing content creation and discovery, enabling compelling, high-quality content to be created and discovered at speed and scale.” To summarize, it’s a pseudo-publication where anyone — mostly millennials — can write about anything and have it published with little to no scrutiny.

Before I move forward with criticizing the site, I first must commend it for its excellent business model. The publication receives a never-ending stream of free content from users and then receives an unending stream of free PR and social media attention. After all, the same people who write these pieces take it upon themselves to make sure people read them and by the same token go to Odyssey’s site.

The question then becomes, why do people create content for the site without compensation rather than create a blog for themselves in which they could produce the exact same content under possibly leaner constraints?

The answer: validation.

Millennials, as the website calls its users, prefer to write for Odyssey rather than their own blog because they like the idea they are writing for a “legitimate” publication. These writers and content creators enjoy having the cerebral sounding name “Odyssey” hanging above the title of their piece about “15 Gilmore Girl gifs that describe my life right now” — a fake title, but similar to many on the site.

These creators want to feel like real writers and Odyssey is more than happy to supply them with this experience by providing them with a platform, a format and even an intern to proofread their work in return for the free labor and production.

In short, there is nothing inherently wrong about this. There is nothing wrong with people indulging their desire for validation and an audience by writing blog posts under the guise of journalism. More power to those who want to. The issue arises when practices like these become so ubiquitous.

I am aware Facebook is not the center of unbiased or even factual information, but at least in the past I would come across a few news articles based on fact, rather than just opinion pieces and BuzzFeed-esque lists. However, now these pieces — particularly those from Odyssey — seem to dominate social media. The problem with this move toward absorption of fluff media and strictly opinion content is twofold.

First, the publications, and more specifically the ubiquitous nature of these posts online, create a problem of the questionably informed leading the ill informed. Sadly, there exists a subset of the population who solely receive their news and information from social media such as Facebook. The overtaking of regular news by links to sites like Odyssey create a situation in which the sole sources of a person’s news, information, life experiences and ideals come from articles written by Facebook friends.

Secondly, the nature of the site as one in which anyone or anything can be published perpetuates and advances stereotypes about millennials. In particular, the idea that millennials want instant gratification and want to succeed without putting in the effort. Odyssey allows anyone to become a “journalist,” which at face value sounds nice and welcoming; this concept, however, allows “writers” to publish without skill or competition, allowing them to go on writing as “journalists” without ever needing to improve their work due to rejection or actual failure.

Odyssey is an interesting successful online content platform that utilizes millennials desire to make their voices heard, and at times even has some well-thought-out and well-written pieces. However, the website creates a situation of the blind leading the blind and perpetuates a situation in which millennials can succeed without putting in real effort.

BEN FACEY is a College sophomore from Williamsport, Pa., studying English. His email address is bfacey@sas.upenn. edu. “At Face Value” usually appears every other Monday. 

Please note All comments are eligible for publication in The Daily Pennsylvanian.