Inspecting Genre Generators

      Although it may not always be acknowledged, there are conventions that surround different genres. Conventions do not necessarily apply to every piece of writing within a genre though. It is still important to study these various conventions in order to improve upon one’s own writing skills.

      After exploring different genre generators, it makes sense now how it is possible to trick people into thinking that something fits into a genre as long as it follows the conventions that usually surround that specific genre. For example, various genre generators on the Internet have proven to trick people into believing that randomly generated research papers are true, or that randomly generated comics or memes can be classified as just that. Looking at the SCIgen website, every paper generated has a title in bold lettering, the abstract, table of contents and an introduction. It is then followed by main points, some diagrams, and maybe even some graphs. The results, related work, a conclusion and references tie the paper together in the end. Each paper was also written in the same format and was well organized. The vocabulary used throughout the papers are more challenging, but as you read the papers the content does not make much sense. The paper may be able to fool some students or teachers, but not well educated people or people who are especially knowledgeable in the science category.

     The comic strips website created comics that were mostly inappropriate. They included either crude humor, curse words, or even nudity. For example, the comics included, “you deleted me on Facebook,” and Simon flashing his butt while telling Finlay to, “check out my ass.” When I explored these comic strips more closely I realized that they were not funny, mostly because they did not make sense since it was randomly thrown together. Some focused on politics, technology, or current events, while others ridiculed society. They all seemed to have an underlying deeper message about our society though. For example, the jokes focused on how we as a society waste our time on materialistic items and do not focus enough of our energy on bettering our society and others.

      The memes generator consisted of all of the overused pictures that are seen on the Internet and seen on most social media sites. The pictures are vaguely funny, but the actual words on the pictures are not funny. The content is anything from crude humor to the polar opposite, and focusing more on serious topics, such as politics. The memes are irrelevant and most are sarcastic. For example, one meme says, “so you’re telling me that the left wing and the right wing belong to the same bird,” while another one says, “you said that you didn’t swallow, your breath determined that was also a lie.”

     Thinking about what is happening in these websites can help someone understand the importance of genres. Genres are important when it comes down to what you are trying to accomplish in your writing. It allows the readers to have a better understanding of the author’s purpose of the writing and what he wants the readers to gain from his work. Observing the conventions that surround various genres makes you think about what you like versus what you do not like when it comes to your own writing. You learn too that conventions can be broken, that in a sense it is even encouraged to break some of them. Studying different conventions can help you to get started on your writing, but it does not and should not have to dictate what your writing should look like.