Nintendo Enthusiast is a website I once wrote for. To be exact, I wrote for them from April of 2019 to January of 2020. My catalogue was small, fewer than 30 articles, but my experience was eye-opening. Most importantly, it taught me about clickbait firsthand. It also made me sympathetic to clickbait culture.
My initial hiring came after I submitted some writing samples from Infinite Rainy Day and The Whitly-Verse. I received an email accepting me toward the end of April, right as I was on my way home from a visit to my brother’s family out West. Considering that I was in the airport, I had little time to process what’d transpired. Fortunately, my flight home fixed that.
Since I don’t want to come off as entirely negative, I’ll mention that my experience wasn’t entirely bad. For one, I was paid in USD. Because I’m Canadian, the exchange rate meant that I was making more per dollar than I’d have normally received. It wasn’t the first time either, Infinite Rainy Day also paid me in USD, but it was the first time an accredited magazine did it. That had to account for something.
Two, Nintendo Enthusiast introduced me to Slack. I don’t like Slack, I think it’s a slower and glitchier version of Discord, but I could casually communicate my co-workers offsite. It also introduced me to “Threads”, which were linked to the feedback on my articles. I consider that a win.
Three, I learned how to professionally pitch my ideas. Nintendo Enthusiast used a special system called Trello for pitching articles, and it was linked to Slack. That not only helped me think about how to sell my ideas, but it informed me what had potential and what didn’t. It was humbling, and it kept me in check.
Four, I developed connections. Not only did Slack have its own community, but the site was good at promoting my work. I remember when the Editor-in-chief featured one of my articles in a video! That was amazing, unexpected and made my day! It also helped give me “street cred”.
And five, the Nintendo Enthusiast community was really chill to talk to. Whether it was the Jackbox Games event I participated in, or discussing The Talmud with a Middle Eastern History major, I always felt welcome. Even when the staff was hard on me, they never despised me. That’s something I’m forever grateful for.
This is where the praise stops, however. For as much as I enjoyed facets of my time at Nintendo Enthusiast, and thank them for “whipping me into shape”, I’m still burnt out by my experience. I feel bad for what I’m about to divulge, but I can’t lie. Nintendo Enthusiast was tough, and that largely had to do with sculpting my writing around hot topics. It was a lesson in the soul-crushing experience of clickbait writing.
Four, I developed connections. Not only did Slack have its own community, but the site was good at promoting my work. I remember when the Editor-in-chief featured one of my articles in a video! That was amazing, unexpected and made my day! It also helped give me “street cred”.
And five, the Nintendo Enthusiast community was really chill to talk to. Whether it was the Jackbox Games event I participated in, or discussing The Talmud with a Middle Eastern History major, I always felt welcome. Even when the staff was hard on me, they never despised me. That’s something I’m forever grateful for.
This is where the praise stops, however. For as much as I enjoyed facets of my time at Nintendo Enthusiast, and thank them for “whipping me into shape”, I’m still burnt out by my experience. I feel bad for what I’m about to divulge, but I can’t lie. Nintendo Enthusiast was tough, and that largely had to do with sculpting my writing around hot topics. It was a lesson in the soul-crushing experience of clickbait writing.
My initial kick in the groin, metaphorically-speaking, was when I started there. Initially I’d been billed as an opinion, news and satire writer, but the satire part was dropped when I realized how hard it was to get pieces published. I actually had an entire “news story” written, complete with a punchline, about Mario and Luigi’s brother Lurio that never made it to the pitching process. And when my attempts at news features turned out to be more difficult than they were worth, that part was quickly dropped too.
So fine, I’m an opinion writer. I write opinion pieces constantly, and I can live with that, right? Well, that also proved a difficult experience. I came in with many ideas, and I naively assumed they’d all be accepted. After all, in my years on Infinite Rainy Day, all four, I was only told “no” 3 times. I wrote some outlandish pieces for them, so surely it’d be the same with Nintendo Enthusiast…right?
Not really. Not only were the editorial staff picky about what they wanted, they were also picky about what they approved. I’m no expert on their inner workings, but it also felt like they were overworked and understaffed. Articles frequently took days, sometimes weeks, before they were slotted for scheduling, and while the editing notes I received became less-frequent over time, initially the walls of texts about what didn’t work were daunting! On occasion I had fully-formed pieces rejected as well.
The real test came in what got published. Not only did it have to be short, 500-1000 words on average, but it was often rewritten and reworked to be more suitable for the readership. Sometimes that worked in its favour, truthfully. But even when said rewrites were good, I still felt like voice was diluted. One of my pieces even included the word “random”. I haven’t used that word regularly high school!
So fine, I’m an opinion writer. I write opinion pieces constantly, and I can live with that, right? Well, that also proved a difficult experience. I came in with many ideas, and I naively assumed they’d all be accepted. After all, in my years on Infinite Rainy Day, all four, I was only told “no” 3 times. I wrote some outlandish pieces for them, so surely it’d be the same with Nintendo Enthusiast…right?
Not really. Not only were the editorial staff picky about what they wanted, they were also picky about what they approved. I’m no expert on their inner workings, but it also felt like they were overworked and understaffed. Articles frequently took days, sometimes weeks, before they were slotted for scheduling, and while the editing notes I received became less-frequent over time, initially the walls of texts about what didn’t work were daunting! On occasion I had fully-formed pieces rejected as well.
The real test came in what got published. Not only did it have to be short, 500-1000 words on average, but it was often rewritten and reworked to be more suitable for the readership. Sometimes that worked in its favour, truthfully. But even when said rewrites were good, I still felt like voice was diluted. One of my pieces even included the word “random”. I haven’t used that word regularly high school!
In addition, the readership was tough. If the site’s comment pages wasn’t discouraging enough, Nintendo Enthusiast had two Facebook pages and a Twitter handle. All three routinely netted gross and nasty feedback from people who either didn’t like my arguments, thought I was a bad writer, or both. It’s easy to laugh off in hindsight, since I’ve read and seen worse since, but as a fairly inexperienced writer it was tough. Especially since I was advised not to engage, which was hard.
But the kicker was the deadlines. In order to be paid, I had to write weekly and regularly. Given the stress of ideas often being rejected, as well as not working well under deadlines, I often found the pay threshold either unmet, or barely met. I would’ve complained, but it was a problem for many writers. We weren’t able to meet the demands put on us, and it led to me getting cut in January of 2020.
Like I said, I don’t want to sound unfairly disparaging. Despite the low pay, harsh deadlines, frequent rewrites and tough criticism, I enjoyed the challenge! But I would I do it again? No. It wasn’t an experience that suited me long-term.
Yet it made me more empathetic to clickbait writers. Let’s face it: clickbait culture’s most-exhausting on the writers themselves. They’re overworked, underpaid and frequently axed if they can’t meet demand. That’s not including the readers dog-piling on them for their opinions, which puts stress on them to meet expectations. It’s a tough job in the name of a system that undervalues them.
But the kicker was the deadlines. In order to be paid, I had to write weekly and regularly. Given the stress of ideas often being rejected, as well as not working well under deadlines, I often found the pay threshold either unmet, or barely met. I would’ve complained, but it was a problem for many writers. We weren’t able to meet the demands put on us, and it led to me getting cut in January of 2020.
Like I said, I don’t want to sound unfairly disparaging. Despite the low pay, harsh deadlines, frequent rewrites and tough criticism, I enjoyed the challenge! But I would I do it again? No. It wasn’t an experience that suited me long-term.
Yet it made me more empathetic to clickbait writers. Let’s face it: clickbait culture’s most-exhausting on the writers themselves. They’re overworked, underpaid and frequently axed if they can’t meet demand. That’s not including the readers dog-piling on them for their opinions, which puts stress on them to meet expectations. It’s a tough job in the name of a system that undervalues them.
That’s why I try not to dog-pile clickbait writers now, even when they’re being obtuse. It’s easy to sell out. Writers do it constantly! But it’s harder for people to sympathize, and even harder to direct the backlash at the powers that encourage constant clickbait to maximize their profits. That needs addressing badly, especially now that information and news have transformed into bite-sized topics for angry swarms to digest and move on from.
Now then, if you’ll excuse me...
Now then, if you’ll excuse me...
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