When Academic Community and Competition Goes Online by Charissa

When Academic Community and Competition Goes Online by Charissa - March 2022 Scholarship Essay

I was waiting for the results of a writing competition to be released when I stumbled upon a forum full of other people who had also entered the contest. It seems unlikely that a bond would form rather than a rivalry but over multiple discussions, over shared interests, one did.

We talked about the books and music we loved, what wild things contemporary poets posted on their social media, and new contests to enter. We spammed the chats with gifs, developed our own lingo, and started a new literary magazine ‘Dishsoap Quarterly.’

I was so incredibly charmed. It seemed that social media had opened a door to me. I was receiving an education from young poets who had honed their craft by editing and editing and editing their poetry. I would go home and spend time talking about a poet I loved and find someone else in the forum who loved that poet too.

I also made a good friend on the forum and we found ourselves calling and talking into late hours about our beliefs about God, the differences between living in the US and Canada, and what it meant to be a ‘teen’ writer in a competition-heavy landscape. During the pandemic, when we faced the frightening first wave and then the months of uncertainty following that first wave, the friendships I made on the forum gave me strength. I found sustaining joy in the conversations I had there.

And yet, the charm would fade. First, with the discovery that an accomplished forum member had plagiarized the work of other forum members who had shared their work. This person then proceeded to threaten the people who confronted him by messaging them uncomfortable and inappropriate content. This would be the first in a string of plagiarism incidents of young people stealing from other young people to gain accolades.

My friend and I were shocked by these incidents. Suddenly, the enchanting and engrossing world of mutual trust, friendship, and curiosity that appeared on the forum’s surface seemed to have something almost monstrous lurking beneath it. We pondered what it meant to write when so much of writing seemed to be geared toward winning competitions.

Social media connections gave me the key to more opportunities and resources to polish my craft. But I am no longer naïve to the harm that an already competitive academic extracurricular culture, heightened by its intersection with social media causes.

When you enter social media, whether an online forum or an Instagram feed with images of beautiful and smart people doing beautiful and intelligent things, you are entering a competitive world. There are new opportunities in this world but also new pitfalls. Social media exposes you to a nation of people seeking beauty and discovery in their lives, but sometimes this transforms into a nation of competition where there is an ideal to be achieved rather than a desire to approach learning and education organically and move toward cultivating contentment and contemplation within.

The people I connected with on social media have inspired me to pursue my writing craft. They have taught me to dwell in unabashed excitement in the poets, books, and music I love. In hard-earned experience, I have learned that there is something to be gained in searching inward for self-fulfillment when learning, rather than chasing a quick public route to academic success. But I am thinking about how social media has made it easier to be tempted by the accolades and the praise of others. How we must now do the difficult task of fighting to keep alive and public the imperfect versions of ourselves, for the sake of being true.