Evolution as a Writer
“Thank you for writing this, you don’t know how much this helped me. I’ve been in a dark place and it’s so comforting to read something so relatable, and to see that I’m not alone. Your words have helped me more than you will never know.”
At 16-years-old, I started my column for the messages above. And at 18-years-old, I began to reuse that direct quote in a plethora of college essays in order to exemplify my involvement within the community: my controversial teen issues column on AOL’s online newspaper, Patch.com. I started my column for the sake of others, to relate to others, and to help others. And while I advocated against alcohol and drug use—never experimenting with the substances myself, and so, mostly advocating out of fear—others related to that. Maybe the name of my column should have been “Scardy-Cats Unite,” “Pretending to be Mature,” or “A Column about of Hypocrisy.” And quite possibly, I deserved the majority of emails that were sent to the column’s email. The inbox consisted mostly of Viagra advertisements, Nigerian princes insisting I was the chosen one to send millions of dollars to—all they needed was my bank account number, social security number, a blood sample, and some pee in a cup—and a couple dozen genuine messages. I wonder if those couple of dozen individuals, praising a young writer for analyzing ideas she had no experience with, evolved into hypocrites too.
Throughout high school, I was a prude: I didn’t drink. I backed away from the potent smell of alcohol disguised within water bottles, and refrained from filling my parents’ liquor cabinet up with water. It wasn’t necessarily that I was against the concept of drinking; typically my best friends were some of the most intoxicated at the party (basement, garage, living room, etc.). But, over the years, I had failed to become interested in getting drunk, blackout, and viciously hungover alongside my peers. And while often I would blame it on family morals or simply a lack of interest that was a lie. I was interested in experimenting with alcohol; I was interested in letting my anxious mind run free under the spell of intoxication; I was interested in acting well beyond my years. But I couldn’t shake my prudish reputation. Other synonymous for such a reputation may include: the goody-two-shoes, the scaredy-cat, squeamish, straight-laced, persnickety, sissified, fastidious, and most famously, the designated driver. I was scared of breaking the rules, I was scared of doing something taboo, and I was scared of getting caught.
With the infamous idea of peer pressure tempting to cloud my judgment, I turned fear into advocacy. Soon, my ideology against drinking and drug use became an identity. After working for Patch one summer, I was offered the opportunity to create a column. Due to its recent uprising within the community and the press, my town quickly became familiar with my columns—which were stemmed around controversial teen issues, and commonly, drug and alcohol use. As I wrote from personal experiences, it was clear that I did not align my values with many of the red eyed, skunk-smelling individuals that roamed the halls after returning from lunch off campus. My articles established that I didn’t drink, I didn’t do drugs, and ultimately, that was fine to admit. I was a clear advocate against drinking and drug use through the voice in my columns, and as I became further recognized for that perspective, there was an increased pressure to keep up the abstinent image. As a published advocate, I began to back away from the controversy, and instead, use such instances as material within my articles. When friends would attempt to make plans, I was busy with my family; I was running a fever; I was having a funeral for my goldfish. In reality, I didn’t want to be associated with the vodka filled water bottles, or the joints concealed in the glove compartment of cars. I didn’t want the smell of tequila infused into the cloth interior of my car, as my belligerent friends sprawled out in the back seat. And I didn’t want to see the red and blue flashing lights of police cars busting another party, even if my breathalyzer blew a zero. But all along, it was not a lack of desire, but increased fear. By 18-years-old, I was in the midst of an identity crisis: whether to be an advocate, or to be a hypocrite. I soon chose hypocrisy.
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By the age of 18-years-old, my reputation was rebooted as I fell into some trouble with the law. And of course, in my small suburban town filled with gossip prone PTA meetings and brand new Mercedes’ parked alongside each freshly paved street, 18-years-old meant that your name was published in the newspaper. On Sunday morning, families would gather around the kitchen table, flipping through the pages of the Northbrook Start directly to the police blotter. It was a weekly bonding activity, analyzing the town rebels—which in hindsight, made us no better than the PTA mothers. During my run in with the legal system, there were no handcuffs, there were no overnight stays in a jail cell, and there were no freshly inked teardrop tattoos sketched below my eye. There were no weapons, no reading of my rights, and no trip within the back seat of a police car. There were simply some high school seniors crouched down within a suburban garage, a beer pong table, and some watermelon Smirnoff. There was a freshly shaven policeman who tossed a beer pong ball directly into a red cup, asking us to give him a round of applause. And then, there was a breathalyzer. During our sophisticated night of vodka shots and beer pong, we let the music blast. Which of course, resulted in a privileged housewife calling the cops, claiming that she wasn’t getting enough beauty sleep to wake up for her 5:30 a.m. yoga class and still have time to grab a kale smoothie on the way. And then, resulted in underage drinking tickets.
At this point, my advocate identity had been compromised. No longer was I the one who could publish bylines saying don’t drink, don’t do drugs, don’t even breathe Yet in the hype of the hypocrisy—and my mother screaming that I would never get into college and my future as a journalist is now tainted—I wondered why I was even writing that in the first place. Why I was buying into the idea that I was capable of creating a piece of work that had no backing. All of this time, I had been writing as a first class hypocrite—and by experimenting, technically, I was doing some research.
The hypocrisy simply didn’t change due to my ‘law run in’ incident. Instead, upon arriving on campus and enrolling in different classes, I continued this same concept within my writing—it was comforting. For an early article that I had written for a publication on campus, I was instructed to write a piece of my choosing with voice. And so, I continued my factual messages, more specially, decoding female text messages such as the response “K”:
“K—One of the most commonly used and vicious words in the female texting dictionary, itself. Don’t let the single letter fool you; its importance cannot be overlooked. And if it is, well you’re only making things worse for yourself” (Decoded, 2013).
And here, one can see the little evidence or altered opinion brought into the article. There was no surveyed population, only my ideas from personal experience—obviously distinguished as fact. While I wasn’t writing about drinking and drug use, I was still writing about stereotypes—things that may or may not be true, yet I’m publishing as fact. We can blame it on being a freshman, we can blame it on hypocrisy, but my writing process needed an alteration.
University of Michigan, and the minor in writing more specifically, eliminated the word hypocrisy from my writing vocabulary—minus the few dozen times I refer to the term within this essay. At Michigan, I was taught the overarching importance of research, sources, and verifying information. I established subjectivity versus objectivity, and acknowledging both sides of a story contrasted to singling out a personal narrative. Within the minor, the use of citations, investigation, and peer review was instrumental to all processes of writing: there was absolutely no room for hypocrites. As evident in the Directed Self Placement essay written upon entering freshman year at the University of Michigan, there is a clear gap in knowledge throughout my writing, and instead, a tendency to take ideas at face value:
“With the addition of specific examples in which brainstorming emphasizes effectiveness, Lehrer displays a supportive and energetic tone; “Osborn described, for instance, how the technique inspired a group of ten admen to come up with eighty-seven ideas for a new drugstore in ninety minutes, or nearly an idea per minute” (DSP Essay, 2012).
One may praise my use of quotes at this stage in my writing, but read again: it’s clear that there is no purpose to this quote aside from overarching idea that I have absolutely no idea what I’m talking about. Instead of conducting background research and delivering a powerful argument, I use the author’s direct text as definition and explanation. Could this have been easily eliminated by research, and in turn, added significant value to the idea of groupthink as a whole—which is the central idea in which the article and paper was written about: yes. Did I research anything aside from reading this single article? No.
The idea of research and peer reviews came as a brief culture shock as first. I gravitated towards opinion, narrative columns, which lacked the responsibility of anyone else sharing their opinion aside from myself. And as I soon came to realize, that approach was simply a scapegoat, taking the ‘easy’ approach to writing. But I wasn’t a professional scholar and as much as I hate to admit it, I wasn’t a substantial celebrity. Ultimately, my opinion and ideologies did not truly make an impact without any backing. As I grew as a writer, I understood the importance of identifying a particular audience, addressing a topic with a purpose, and how to appropriately incorporate research, sources, and merit to any piece of work. Contrasting the ideas of such processes from earlier phases to later development, there is a clear addition of research elements evident in a paper written during my junior year, reflecting on the Instagram application:
“The whiteness displayed within the popular page of Instagram may be reflective of a white movement within the application, as other races have not yet completely adapted to the particular interface. When analyzing the screenshot of the Instagram popular page feed, out of the nine photos of individuals, all are pictured with at least one Caucasian… As Boyd discusses in her writing, different social networks are considered “socially acceptable” within different groups, so not all segments of people are exposed to the same effects (2012). The reoccurring sexualized images of Caucasian females throughout Instagram may be reflective of a digital white flight towards Instagram itself, and therefore, this group is more accustomed and conforming to the sexualization of images posted on Instagram” (Instagram and the Popular Page, 2014).
Within this passage, I cannot fit in enough research. And instead of deeming ideas as fact, I outwardly address the idea that these are simply observations from the interface. These observations, though, I am able to link to a scholarly source—and a greater overall idea of ‘White Flight’ within social networks. The usage of words such as ‘may’ and ‘representative’ identify ideas, yet don’t determine my own observations as fact—differing from my Patch articles, where the fact there was that individuals drink as an escape, to feel cool, yet said individuals were never asked. Comparing quotes from different phases of my growth as a writer distinguish a change in process—the lack of personal research, versus a firm argument with backing.
These ideas of backing were further enforced as my plethora of classes demanded bibliographies within all papers, along with days committed to background research of topics and trends. I quickly learned that there was no place for an individual who claimed to know it all within the writing world—or if no one else is interested in reading your bullshit claims. And every time I was emerged in a new piece, picking through research, models, or background information, I’m transported back to my days writing for Patch.com. Writing as a professional source, who had yet to take a sip of alcohol—yet suggesting no one does. An individual who was attempting to control others’ actions, without knowing the full story; a hypocrite behind a computer screen. And now, my motivation to be anything but that.
Getting the facts right is important, it’s significant. As an avid reader, I’m constantly putting my trust in other’s people hands—or words. And while I’ve been countlessly reprimanded to not believe everything I read, I often wonder why I shouldn’t. We shouldn’t be hypocrites, and we shouldn’t be lying through our words, our articles, our stories. And if I read that Justin Bieber and Madonna are having a baby, I want to be able to believe that whole-heartedly—I pray someone appreciated that humor, and does not that I’m helplessly naïve. But as I reflect on my evolution as a writer, I can’t help but crack a smile. While my writing itself may have not changed much—I tend to write with a consistent voice, in a consistent style—my process has. And admittedly, it’s all about the process. Instead of simply sitting down at the computer screen, getting a quick finger workout in and pressing publish; I’m responsible with my bylines. I talk to others, I peer review, and I research the hell out of my articles until I can almost recite strange facts about a topic in my sleep. I wonder if it weren’t for the University of Michigan minor in writing program, if this process would have been significantly altered—or if I’d just be another individual online writing about Justin and Madonna’s new bundle of joy. On that note, all praise the University of Michigan minor in writing—its skills have altered my personality, my process, my relationships, and my future as a writer.