Genre Generators PB1B

            At first, I had no idea what this whole “genre-generator” thing was. I thought each site would create different genres within themselves, but with further experimentation I soon realized that each site created its own specific genres. Each genre that was created in the sites had very specific conventions. Each convention allowed the viewer to fully assess the type of genre being displayed in front of them.

            The first genre generator was SCIgen, a computer science research paper generator. As soon as a paper was generated it was apparent that this was some type of formal academic text. This site in my opinion was full of conventions. The visual layout and structure of each generated paper was extremely similar. The text font and sizes all matched up, the headings, the different layers, the main difference was the content. Each article displayed a boldfaced heading along with multiple bold sub headings. Every paper contained a table of contents, an intro, related works, references, and a section called “abstract” to start it out. The papers all contained a heavy amount of academic vocabulary and didactic phrasing. Honestly, a lot of the writing in the papers hardly make any sense. It is as though a bunch of different paragraphs were pasted together that don’t entirely talk about the same subjects. At the front of the website however, there is a bit of a disclaimer that states that the papers are more for “amusement, rather than coherence”. Another convention seen throughout the papers are a series of many different figures. The figures can either be graphs, tables, or regular drawings. They also do not seem completely coherent to the whole work of the paper. Overall, one of the key conventions for the SCIgen computer science paper generator is the random incoherent pasting together of scientific knowledge.

            The Pandyland comic generator was a total blast to experiment with. Again, I noticed the total random nature of the comics. Some pictures placed together made sense and worked perfectly well together, while others made absolutely no sense together. The comic strips had me laughing literally out loud at a few moments. Some of the main conventions I noticed which really made the comic strips, well comic strips, were the drawings, the text, and the humor. Of course the comic, like most, was a series of three drawings and contained a very minimal amount of actual text. The drawing and the words complemented themselves very well however. The drawing served as a visual representation of the words. Conventionally, the comic was humorous with traditional poop jokes, penis jokes, harsh language, and moments where the reader would simply ask “what the fuck was that?”  The comics were very fun to read and experiment with. The conventions present allowed me to realize that the comics were comics, no matter how strange or disturbing the images became.

            Lastly was the fun and pretty hip meme generator. I am a big fan of memes, so I was excited to see what this site had in store. I had a lot of fun experimenting with this site and most likely explored it the most out of the three. Memes have pretty basic conventions. They are based mainly on a picture and a few words. Out of the past two genres I would say the meme is the easiest to create. All one needs is a picture and a clever set of words to go with it. Normally half the words are written on the top part of the picture and the other half on the bottom. The fonts and sizes of the words on the top and bottom of the picture are also usually different. Another convention is that the words are based off of the picture. The picture is used to show a visual for the particular emotion or situation presented in the text. They can be read either text first, then see the picture, or picture then text. Memes are a very unique art. I did more exploring and found another meme generating site entitled: https://imgflip.com/i/1841a  The memes on this site also contained all the conventions of the memes on the first meme generating site. Nowadays one can keep calm and find memes everywhere.

            What is happening in these websites can help someone better understand genre by displaying the main differences of each genre through their very different conventions. The websites give a visual of different genre types and make it very clear to the viewer how different each genre actually is. By picking up on the conventions of each genre the viewer can see what makes one genre what it is, while something else is a completely different genre. The way each genre is presented on each site makes it very easy for the viewer to identify the key conventions which make each genre, that genre. 

Link to other meme site: https://imgflip.com/i/1841a