PB1B : Genre Generators

PB1B

Inspecting Genre Generators

As I inspect various genre generators from SCIgen, comic strips, memes, and random movies.  you will notice that all of them has its similarities and differences. These differences are very unique because each generator is specifically designed to give you a different perspective on certain things that you might have actually thought different about in the past. Before I did my research on each generator, I gathered a few thoughts on what might each look like because I never knew what a genre generator really was. I figured each different generator will be a totally different genre because they will most likely  generate different words, conventions, and images each time you use them.

The first genre generator that I analyzed was created by a company named ScIGEN. SCIgen is a program that generates random computer science research papers, including graphs, figures, and citations. It uses a hand-written context-free grammar to form all elements of the papers. It aims to “maximize amusement, rather than coherence”. Here is an example of  SCIgen website’s randomly generated scientific research paper is “Rooter: A methodology for the Typical Unification of Access Points and Redundancy.” This example of a  randomly generated paper conventions that I noticed was the formatting and organization of the paper. It had an introduction, analysis, experimental evaluation, experimental analysis, data tables and charts as well as a conclusion. I also seen more conventions as I closely looked at the paper, that I didn't even realize the first time I looked at it.  It was surprising to see the abstract of the paper, titles, implementation, hardware and software configuration, experimental results, related work, multi-processors, and references of a research paper.

The second generator that I analyzed was Pandyland comic strip generator. This generator created randomized comic strips based off a certain genre or word that a particular person would type  into it. I already had an idea of the conventions that I would find, but thee majority of conventions in this generator are similar to most comic books, which are eye-appealing, easy to read, colorful, narrative/storytelling, graphic, cartoon-like, and humorous.

The third generator that I analyzed were memes from meme generator. Since already knowing about memes, it was easy to talk about it and explain it more on why a meme is a meme, and also pointing out the conventions. A meme is a viral cultural symbol and also a social idea. The majority of memes are captioned photos that are intended to be funny. Other memes can be videos and verbal expressions. A meme can be almost any idea or concept expressed in some form of content on the web, which is why it can be difficult to get a real definition. It can be a photo, a video, a person, an animal, a fictional character, an event, a song, a belief, an action, a GIf, a symbol, a word or anything else. Memes often gets shared all over the Internet.

The last generator that I analyzed was one that I picked on my own which was random list of movies created by “SuggestMeMovie” I chose this because movies are very hard to choose because so many are released into theaters or for rental every week. A random movie selection probably isn't any better or worse than your choosing.  Sometimes if you try to look for a good movie, some critics have their own opinion and might can influence you from not watching a movie that you might actually like. You type in the year you want to watch a movie from, genre, ratings, and keywords eg. a famous actor/actress, topic, etc and then boom a list of random movies is right there for you. The conventions that stood out to me were easy to use, helpful, straightforward, colorful,  and organized. Each time the generator is used it suggests you a new movie.

I know you’re wondering how can thinking about what’s happening in these websites can help someone better understand genre? It starts with conventions, they play a big role in genres. Understanding a genre’s fixed pattern of conventions can help you better understand a genre. Analyzing these four different genre generators made me realize how much of a variety there is of genres out there. You can see that every genre has its own characteristics, tone, purpose, text, and audience. In conclusion, each genre and its generator  is unique in its own way. Some uses more imagery and less information than other genres but together the goal of each is to please whoever uses it.