WP1, PB1B

Using genre generators, I was able to experiment with identifying conventions regarding 4 different types of genres, all of which were textual. The textual genres included ballad lyrics, ( http://www.song-lyrics-generator.org.uk/create.php?song=13, the sci-gen website would only generate one paper), comic strips, memes, and horror-story introductions (http://www.springhole.net/writing_roleplaying_randomators/creepypastaplot.htm).

The ballad lyric generator clearly outlined the conventions of ballad lyrics; in order to provide all of the necessary information for the lyrics, the site explicitly instructs the user to provide an adjective that defines the user, the user’s occupation, the sex of who the song is about, the role of the person in the user’s life (cousin, friend, etc.), an adjective to describe the person, and the person’s occupation; the site instructs the user to provide a day, month, or season, and a period of the of day; then the user provides something or someone he/she could meet, and something reckless someone could have done with the thing/person; the same is done but with respect to someone else meeting a person or thing and something reckless someone else could have done with the person/thing; then two body parts, four adjectives, and two verbs must be provided.

The ballad then goes as follows:

1. The ballad begins with a nostalgic set-up that introduces the (first person) main character and the (third person) emotional interest, along with a term of endearment for the emotional interest by the main character, followed by a nostalgic memory of the two when they were happy with each other, and even had hopes for the future.
2. Next, the two characters undergo a pivotal negative experience that changes their relationship, in these cases involving the two messing up the relationship themselves by doing something excessively, followed by the emotional interest finalizing the mess-up by doing something extra stupid..
3. After that, the main character dwells on his/her emotional distress due to the final stupid incident caused by the emotional interest, which indicates that the main character and the emotional interest are now split up.
4. Finally, the main character reminisces on the emotional interest and the pivotal negative experience that changed their relationship, and relives the emotional distress he/she underwent during that time.

The conventions of the ballad can be summarized as follows: there is main character, usually portrayed in first person, and an emotional interest of the character, whether it may be a family member, a love interest, etc, who are introduced in a nostalgic set-up; The two start out well, but then a pivotal negative experience begins jeopardizes their relationship, which is finished by the emotional interest doing something stupid to finalize their splitting of the two; The main character dwells on her emotional distress from the experience; then the main character reminisces on the experience as a whole, indicating that the emotional distress is still relived and not quite resolved.

The Pandyland randomly-generated comics with Finlay and Simon provide a very simple example of the conventions of the comic-genre: the comics involve (at least) two characters, a beginning, middle, and end that includes a situation, and room for interpretation. The Pandyland comics, more specifically, are humorous, and include popular references as well as unexpected/shocking events. The room for interpretation is what works well for the humorous aspect of these comics, because it allows us to form our own conceptualizations about what is happening in the scenes.

To create the comics, it is obvious that the generator is accounting for a beginning, middle, and end within the three events it shows. The order of the events can not be changed, because they would be nonsensical; the ending event shows something that at times would not be able to come before any of the other events, such as one of the characters being killed. The middle event is generally a response to the beginning event, which acts as a set-up. This shows that comics’ beginning event is usually a set-up, followed by some sort of response, which leads to a conclusion; and so, humorous comics such as these have a set-up, a response (or effect) and a conclusion.

As a genre, memes have their own conventions as well. While many subgenres exist within the genre of “memes,” they all have a few things in common, one of which is the format, in which there is a header text and a footer text; all memes also revolve around a specific photograph that captures a specific expression that can be attributed to the intention of the text in the meme (the “meme” is created by providing a humorous text for an image with which it is not originally associated, but with which an association (usually humorous) may be seen and drawn): some, such as the “Willy Wonka” memes, have headers that are not specific to the meme, and may change every time the picture is used; others such as the Dos Equis “Most Interesting Man in the World” meme (I don’t always…)  may not have a fixed header, but a fixed introduction; others such as the “One Does Not Simply” meme have a fixed header all of the time.

According to the Horror Story Prompt Generator on springhole.net, horror story prompts (or extracts) have conventions as well: there is a set-up involving a prepositional phrase (one day in a wrecked plane), a set of characters (a man, an evil widower), and a supernatural event (transforming a doctor into a werewolf).

These websites can help one understand genre because they provide many examples that share common fundamental elements. These fundamental elements that provide skeletal structures for the genres help one distinguish among genres and recognize the existence of sub-genres that share more general fundamental elements (such as the header and footer of a meme) but differ in more specific elements (such as the specificity of the header).