Putting Yourself Out There On Social Media
Creating a website and running social media pages isn't easy, and neither is showcasing your life and interests for the world to see. Though it's probably all in my head, I feel judgement with every post and picture I put up. People questioning my motives, or critiquing me at every little thing. It's all that I think about after I hit publish, but I know that it shouldn't.
I enjoy writing, and quite frankly I love sharing all of my passions and views with others, so I shouldn't stop to think about what others think before I hit submit on anything. Perhaps it's just the way society runs in today's world with regard to technology that I am so prone to thinking the world is such a hyper-critical place. While that might actually be true to some degree, that doesn't mean that anyone should be thwarted from doing what they enjoy.
When I write about what I like, I do it for the satisfaction it gives me to do so. To put it simply, I get something out of it. I set my deadlines and write about exactly what is on my mind. My words can be informal, and I can post when I want, about whatever I want. It's total freedom, and it's reward is the joy that it gives me in the process. But then comes The Odyssey.
As many of you probably know, I am also a writer for my school's chapter of this online media/news/blog/whatever you want to call it site. At first, I was excited at the opportunity to have my voice be heard by such a large audience, but quickly it wore me out. College is hard enough, but to have to write a weekly article every single week isn't easy. It may sound doable, but once the projects and tests roll in, meeting that Thursday night deadline becomes harder and harder. It makes you resent ever signing up to be a part of it. I would pour my heart and soul into my articles trying to make an impact or to least help some people out there, and it was all for nothing. I would watch The Odyssey share listicle after listicle about "The Greatest Darty Outfits" or "College Life As Told By The Office," yet mine would never get recognition.
Now I'm not saying no one would find those articles -if we can call them articles -entertaining, or informative, considering it was honestly the first I had heard of the existence of a "day drinking party" (which if you ask me is just alcoholism, but who am I, the non-drinker, to talk). However, in a generation that is already labeled "lazy" and "pathetic" these attempts at professional writing being promoted by the site itself only make millennials look worse. Before I get too far ahead of myself, I don't want to come off as jealous or bitter that my articles don't do as well as these, but if we take into consideration the time and energy I put into my articles as compared to how much others put into theirs, yet they get more attention, it's no wonder I'm frustrated.
So I've started to join in on the listicle parade. Every week our head Odyssey editors who work with our schools send out lists of article ideas to hundreds of students at a time. This means that dozens of students are writing the same article, and those who are thinking originally are left to the side and not promoted because they don't fit into the set theme of the week. But because the end of the semester workload was piling up a few weeks ago, I decided to actually use one of the topic ideas that they sent out, and guess what, The Odyssey shared my article on Twitter. I typed up a quick little listicle with less than 200 words without much thought, yet it was considered popular and worthy of sharing. I turn on my messages today, and the exact same article was just shared on the site's Facebook page. But what about all those other articles that exhibited hard work, thought, and vulnerability?
I've put myself out there time and time again with no recognition, and with my overworked schedule making writing articles more of a chore than a hobby, my desire to stop writing for the site has only grown more and more. I don't need recognition to write, but I most certainly need to enjoy it. If I was getting paid to write for The Odyssey, sure I would stay and do my due diligence, but I don't. I am not able to write like I do on my blog for the site. I am not able to blog about the latest makeup trends or provide an update on my dogs, or even what I baked last week. Sure, who wants to hear about a twenty-year-old girl's daily life? Not many. But who wants to write about her life and share it with all those who will listen? I do.
I started this website to write for me and I don't need to get anything out of it other than my personal happiness. I was never one to write in a journal -perhaps it is just the communication major in me wanting to project my views -but this platform let's me put myself out there on my own terms. It may not always be easy, nothing in life is, but damn I'm going to enjoy it no matter what anyone has to say about it.