Picture it, it’s 2014, BuzzFeed is all the rage from their pop culture quizzes to their breaking news articles. Growing up in an expanding era of social media, being a social influencer or blog writer was all of the rage. All I wanted to do was be a part of BuzzFeed. Their casual writing style and funny content always captured my attention and I wanted to be the cool person writing for that company. Little did I know that all of my favorite users and content creators would later speak out about their experiences while working in the company that gave me a reality check.
While a lot of people were originally drawn into the familiar and casual writing, the emojis in the titles of articles became too much. As time continued and BuzzFeed kept regurgitating old content, more and more people began to dislike the once loved company. Instead of generating new content and pushing their employees to succeed by giving them the avenue to grow, they limited them to certain topics that seemed to do well. People began to discredit the company and its writers due to the dismissing of criticism of wanting new content and simply reposting old videos over and over until they became annoying.
The only series that I think were truly quality content were BuzzFeed Unsolved and the Try Guys because of their ability to push new and intriguing content despite the restrictions put in place. A witty combination of information and comedy was successful, but even then the creators were slowly drained of their want to continue to create because of the demands of BuzzFeed. While I wish they still made new content, it’s understanding how a company can take advantage of their employees and slowly turn them against their own work.
Buzzfeed is a good example of a company that seems too good to be true in the beginning and then turns out to be just as bad as everyone thought. While in 2014 they seemed to get everyone and pushed the right content, they seem to have stuck to only what they know and not adapted to changing times. If articles of “50 Things You Need Right Now” and “What Happened To Kim this Week” are your thing, then you’ll still love them. However, they need to look at where they could be growing in different areas to gain any sort of respect back that the community once had. Maybe it’s time for them to avoid scandalous drama articles about celebrities and focus on different genres. Or maybe the brand of BuzzFeed can never change from its past?
In a sense, that’s why I abandoned my childhood dream of working for BuzzFeed. While they looked good in the beginning, I could never see myself there anymore. Now, I use Her Campus to play out my dream of wanting to be a writer and it is going pretty well. What has happened to BuzzFeed has taught me that not everything is what it seems from the outside and it is important to understand what happens inside a company to get a full sense of their brand and values.