other Road to Reporterhood: Five Lessons from Tanki's Most Infamous Writer

[Person_Random 4,991]

Through my journey as an emerging writer to the fledgeling reporter that I am today, I’ve gained so much experience that really helped me take the next step and blossom into a better person.

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Just about a year and some ago, a scrawny little tanker stepped onto the forum, not knowing what would ever happen. That tanker would go through initial success, a cycle of victory and failure, self-deprecation, a nadir, and finally, find the road that led to the ultimate accomplishment of becoming a Tanki Online Reporter. Tankers, that player was me. I went through the pain of losing, the self-hate, the pain of self-made enemies all around me, but I pulled through. Of course, with a journey that wild, I’ve learned so many lessons, not just about Tanki Online and the Forum, but life lessons I’ll never forget.  Out of everything I’ve gained in this past year and a half, five points summarize the best takeaways from this journey.

 

1. Always bring your A-game.

I noted that at first, I gained early success in two random writing contests that I just decided to participate in with hours before the deadline. With those clutch victories under my belt, I was sure that I could pull off the same trick in the AWS and have many viewers crowd by my pieces. After all, didn’t I just finish two contests (including a CtS) in under an hour and gain 40 000 crystals in return? Of course, that meant my first few articles were just a rough draft with a superficial edit or two submitted in under thirty minutes.

 

Needless to say, my early articles were a bit of a flop. But because of my headstrong personality, I always channeled various excuses to explain my contest fiascos and low view count: I was an unknown and just as unpopular in Tanki as in real life. However, the truth was that I wasn’t putting in the work to get the feedback I thought I deserved. Finally, I found out the truth. It wasn’t that no one wanted to look at my pieces, but rather that I needed to put in more effort into the writing process to get more out of my work. Once I got that idea in my head, it was a few months before I finally could make a name for myself.

 

2. Everyone is different, find your strengths.

I used to try various genres of writing that I believed would be more “popular” than others: humor, guides, reviews, stories, whatever I felt like would gather more views for me. However, this “strategy” of mine only caused more severe issues: drops in self-confidence and anger management problems. At that time, I often felt that no one understood my jokes or thought that my interpretation of the review was a witty idea.

 

But it wasn’t just that. I suppose as I was writing in my early style (a more humorous, choppy sentence structure with plenty of emotes and strikethroughs), I neglected to think of what I was good at in writing: lyrical, descriptive bits with ample servings of figurative language and alliteration. Once I understood what was pushing my progress back, it was a hard transition to get to, but over the months, I started to make a name for myself. Before long, I was on the road to becoming a reporter.

 

3. Always cherish your feedback.

In the writing class I attended for five years, my teacher often forced us to write feedback for other classmates. Because of my poor writing abilities at the time and the insensitivity of other students, I was often sent back with a truckload of negative comments. It was pretty obvious that by the time I started contributing to the AWS, I viewed feedback as another opportunity to take a shot at the fairly large target on my back, which started me off on the wrong foot. At first, I was always angry because of the words others had suggested so I could improve, but when I started reading, I also discovered that their advice proved correct. Their opinions helped me make more progress as a writer as well as learn how to tolerate negative words directed towards me, a great win-win in my journey to reporterhood.

 

4. What happens off the forum stays off the forum.

If you’ve ever been bothered by me, stop cheering right now, I don’t annoy people anymore. For the most part of my forum career, I was plagued with self-hate and social issues, which often spilled over to the forum. If I felt discouraged by my track teammates or short-changed by my friends, it would often end up fueling my anger on the forum. After several of those “episodes”, I ended up alienating a lot of people who I shouldn’t have. It’s one of the greatest regrets of my life. Sometimes, I think if I were to go back and fix my life, this is probably one of the first things I would change for the better.

 

But since time cannot turn around, I just had to work hard and show the tankers I had annoyed that I wasn’t always like this. These past few months were hard as a tanker, and then Guest Writer, because biting my tongue and deciding not to type out a poisonous message was always one of the hardest things to do. However, as time passed (and with the help of my good friend), I was able to change my personality and myself for the better.

 

This does bring me to another point: Always have someone to talk to if things aren’t going well. I don’t mean to excuse my poor behavior, but I know that at that time, I had no one who I could reach out to and discuss my problems with. As a result, the Tanki Online Forum, the closest thing I had to a real friend, became the prime place to vent. It definitely wasn’t the right thing to do, and I apologize for that. But I think if I had someone who I could reach out to, things would have been different. However, one must learn from past mistakes to improve, and through these hardships, I’ve become a better person.

 

5. Erasing a bad reputation is an uphill battle, change for the better and never give up to go back to your old ways.

Well, of course, I had become a bad name among the reporters for my unique attitude, which stopped me from advancing further into the ranks of the best writers, even though I was just as good as them. To counter the stain I had on my name, I had to work much harder (and crank out a record-number of editorials) to prove myself worthy of joining the newspaper team. At times, it was tempting to lash out in anger, which happened a few times, but mostly, I was able to stop my fingers just milliseconds before they sent that angry message on Discord or the TO Forum. But now, even though some might still have some sour memories of me, it’s easily wiped aside by my now easygoing personality on the forum.

 

It’s a tough and slow process, and there are more than enough setbacks to get even the most persistent of people to lose interest, give up, and snap. However, I assure you that even though the journey will be one of the hardest things to go through, the reward at the end of your hard work will be enough to make the journey worth it.

 

6. Sit down, shut up, keep your head down, and watch the world revolve around you.

So this is more of a recent discovery than a lesson I've learned throughout my journey. It's pretty simple: sometimes we feel the need to criticize that one typo a teacher made or tell that one kid who slept through the math exam that their 85 was only due to the grade curve. Often times, I've found myself making these comments without thinking about the consequences and they've come back to haunt me.

However, recently, instead of listing unnecessary and angry comments on the forum and in real life, I decided to focus on other things instead of wasting my breath saying words that would usually hurt my reputation. Sometimes, it would be hard to bite my tongue when I saw injustices or something I really needed to criticize or vent, but I pulled through. I picked up US History and Physics instead of flaming others, suffered through the hard times of losing who I thought was my best friend, and survived a semester of one of the hardest years in school. After that, I went from amateur writer to Newspaper Reporter candidate, from lonely and friendless to content with my life, from struggling to succeeding in academics. It's safe to say that not speaking up isn't the only thing that'll step you up into the next level of life, but if talking is doing more harm than good, it's something you definitely could try.

 

If you’ve snoozed through the textwalls I’ve put in the time to write, don’t worry, all you need to know is: 1. Always bring your A-game, 2. Everyone is different, find your strengths, 3. Always cherish your feedback, 4. What happens off the forum stays off the forum, and finally 5. Erasing a bad reputation is an uphill battle, change for the better and never give up to go back to your old ways. Hopefully, these tips will help you grow not only as a writer, but also give you the tools to thrive in life.

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If you’ve read this, you’ve now got five new guidelines to help better your daily life. Good luck in both the Tanki world and real life!

 

 

[kaisdf 3,320]

Ever wanted to become a reporter? Curious how some of the current team made it? Well, our very own Person_Random is here to share his experiences. Enjoy!

[Sacrifice 2,278]

noices, it took me many, many, many attempts. 

[Destrod 2,634]

All it took me was a good pickup line. But then again, not everyone is good at pickup lines :x

Anyway I wrote like four articles because I was a pickup liner and not a writer, and then I left because I couldn't cope with the idea generation.

Motto: Pickup lines wont take you far

[KillerGnat 3,135]

Dang way to go P_R. I remember approving your first aws article. Glad you made it to the newspaper 

[KillerGnat 3,135]

wait who put kaismult as reporter admin?? there mustve been some mistake

[Pythor 1,354]

15 hours ago, KillerGnat said:

wait who put kaismult as reporter admin?? there mustve been some mistake

 At first I thought the same