It’s an experience we know all too well: innocently scrolling through Facebook, attempting to stay up to date on your friends’ activities and unwillingly being drowned in a sea of useless click-bait articles. You know the type of article I’m talking about: the ones with titles like, "20 Things I Want to Tell My Little," "10 Struggles That Only Girls With Long Hair Will Understand" and "8 Thoughts Every Girl Has When Picking Out a Halloween Costume."
It seems as though every other post is someone linking an article from The Odyssey on a friend’s timeline with an accompanying message along the lines of, "omg this is so us!!!" Occasionally my curiosity will get the best of me and I’ll click on whatever trendy new "50 Things That Only ____ Will Understand" is constantly being re-posted on my news feed. This practice has left me mystified and frustrated to say the least.
Let me start off by addressing the fact that the Greek community here at UF doesn’t have an exactly stellar reputation with those not directly involved in it. This isn’t meant to be a blanket statement, but I’ve realized through enough talks with non-Greek friends and acquaintances that being involved in it comes with a certain set of preconceived notions that aren’t particularly flattering.
I will be the first to say the articles gaining the most traction from publications like The Odyssey are undoubtedly perpetuating these stereotypes. For starters, the topics they cover are unoriginal and clichéd. I think I must have scrolled past 15 different versions of "10 Reasons Why I Love My Big" just within the last semester. Additionally, I’m convinced there’s absolutely no editing process, at least judging from the amount of laugh-worthy grammatical errors I’ve stumbled upon. I’m sorry, but if you can’t tell the difference between "then" and "than" or "their" and "there," THEN you shouldn’t consider yourself a published journalist. It’s gotten to the point where my roommate and I have a competition to see who can find the worst Odyssey article, which results in a lot of laughs and lost faith.
We can do better than this. How is the Greek community supposed to be respected when articles like these are serving as many students’ only contact with our organizations? I know damn well if I wasn’t in a chapter and saw these thoughtless blurbs floating around on the Internet, I’d judge us just as harshly. Luckily, I know how many accomplished and talented people are a part of this community; however, that does nothing to rectify the situation.
The First Amendment gives us the right to free speech, not effective speech. I’m sure there are plenty of talented writers working for The Odyssey, but unfortunately it seems like the most stereotypical articles are the ones garnering the most circulation. It’s the nature of online journalism, I suppose. People share what they identify with, and what better way to guarantee readers than by being as generic as possible?
I will never claim to be the personification of journalistic perfection. Hell, I’m still trying to figure out how I managed to trick the Alligator into thinking my opinions were valid enough to be published. But with that said, I put a lot of thought and hard work into what I write and it saddens me to see friends actively perpetuating the stereotypes we fight so adamantly to eradicate. We all have so much more depth beyond the "sorority girl" or "frat boy" labels we bear, and I look forward to the day when the rest of the UF community realizes this as well.
Marisa Papenfuss is a UF English junior. Her column appears on Tuesdays.
