Wednesday, April 6, 2016

PB1B - Inspecting Genre Generators

In this society, there are countless types of genres. Media has had a major influence on the increase in genre diversity. In recent years, the enhancements of media have created opportunities for the general public to generate a personalized version of a specific genre. Through the experimental use of the different genre generators, SCIgen, Comic Strips, Memes, and the Song Lyric Generator, we are able to evaluate and understand the certain characteristics and aspects that genuinely define a genre.
SCIgen is a program that creates a randomised computer science research paper that includes all its components. It is evident that this generator for computer science research papers is very specific to its genre. Through the observations of SCIgen, we are able to see the conventions of a computer science research paper. The SCIgen generator made me a computer science research paper with the topic, ‘Decoupling Sensor Networks from Rasterization in Congestion Control. This type of genre commonly includes features of an abstract, introduction, related work, implementation, figures, results, conclusions, and references. Formal style of language is also shown extremely important as computer science research papers are always directed to professors, scientists, and doctors. Although this website is aimed to more so amuse people, we are able to recognize the general features contained in a computer science research paper.
Comic Strips generator is a completely funny, randomized comic maker. It randomizes different situations in different order using the same two characters each refresh click. There are approximately 74,000 combinations. The effects of this randomized order of comic slides create a new event or situation each time. The comic generator produced a situation involving the first character with a bloody knife, the second character with a shocked facial expression, and the first character jumping in the air of enjoyment. The conventions evident in comic genres are comprised of cartooned characters, an interpersonal conversation shown in capital letters, close-up of characters to reveal an intensified facial emotion, and genuinely include wittiness, especially swear words and humorous violence. Informal language is mostly used in comics, as their audience is usually young, adolescent boys as they enjoy humorous violence.
Meme Generator was the first online meme generator, and allows the public to have a blog and create their version of memes. Conventions of these meme captions always involve hilarity, especially based on ‘first-world problems’, stereotyped people, being lazy, sexual activity, being healthy, sarcasm, school-related, and struggles of daily life, alongside with pictures from famous or trending movies, videos, pictures, etc. For example, a meme picture steals a shot from the famous movie ‘Lord of the Rings,’ along with the caption quoted from the movie, “one does not simply…” together with the customized meme caption, “say no to bacon.” The intended wittiness of these memes are directed for these adolescent to young adult who heavily use social media, mostly ranging from ages 14-24 years old. It is genuinely presented for amusement and entertainment, to receive responses such as likes, re-tweets, and comments from various social media devices.
Lastly, I chose the song lyric generator for the last genre. This song lyric generator provides a selection from varied styles and asks specific questions to create a personalised song. Conventions of all songs comprise of verses and a chorus. I chose a break up song as my specific genre. The questions asked were based on the conventions and features of a break up song genre that consist of best memory, sad scenery and weather, outlook on the future, what went wrong, how much they miss them, and something alone they did that day. Break up songs tend to include these features to relate to those who have experienced similar break ups and emotions.

There is no doubt that media has increased the genre variation. Various genre generator websites each follow their own patterns of features. Observing these different genre generators, SCIgen, Comic Strips, Meme generator, and song lyric generator allow us to realise and understand the different components that categorize a genre.

3 comments:

  1. Hi Steph! I think you analyzed each of the genres we were assigned properly and I liked the genre generator you chose. Song lyrics are a cool genre to analyze, specially because they come in some many different shapes, sizes, etc. I think it would have been nice if you mentioned how lyrics are also directly affected by the music genre they belong too. Even though some break up songs have the elements you mentioned, some other break up songs, depending the music genre, might not have the same elements. Although you listed what the convention of each genre were, I think it would be nice if you could expand your opinion about them a little bit more. The same about the analysis of how the genre generators helped us understanding genre better.

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  2. I think you were very detailed in your observations about the genres you observed. I also liked how you gave a brief explanation of what each generator was, but I think you could've gone a little more in-depth. You only talked about the memes, comic, and paper from the generators and I think it would be even better if you compared it to other research papers, memes, or comic strip that you have read or seen. But overall, it was structured very well and you made your points very clear. Also maybe talk a little more about how these generators helped you figure out the conventions for each genre.

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  3. Yamada!

    You mentioned this in class, and I thought it was spot-on: “Of her 65.9 million Instagram followers, her targeted audience are mostly worldwide young adult girls ranging from 18-25 years old. This generation of these specific ages are very self-aware and conscious of their beauty and looks. They idolise and want to be more like these famous people like Kim Kardashian with flawless skin, curves, tiny waist, modern fashion wear, immaculate makeup, etc. as they have the want for fame and beauty.” Right on—to get the most out of thinking about genres+conventions, it’s important to think about all the possible social aspect(s) behind the text too.

    Your meme analysis was tremendous. This has the exact level of thoroughness and specificity that I want: “Conventions of these meme captions always involve hilarity, especially based on ‘first-world problems’, stereotyped people, being lazy, sexual activity, being healthy, sarcasm, school-related, and struggles of daily life, alongside with pictures from famous or trending movies, videos, pictures, etc. For example, a meme picture steals a shot from the famous movie ‘Lord of the Rings,’ along with the caption quoted from the movie, “one does not simply…” together with the customized meme caption, “say no to bacon.” The intended wittiness of these memes are directed for these adolescent to young adult who heavily use social media, mostly ranging from ages 14-24 years old. It is genuinely presented for amusement and entertainment, to receive responses such as likes, re-tweets, and comments from various social media devices.” Ha! Great work. ☺

    In Writing 2, we’re trying to train you to become super-observant so that you can get down to the nittiest of details and adhere (if that’s what you want to do) to the audience’s expectations. By gaining a deeper and more critical reading awareness, you’ll be able to adopt/adapt writer’s choices (their writing) into your own writing—we’re not quite there yet (that’s WP2!), but we’ve got a good start.

    Z

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