Genre Generator

Genre, as defined by dictionary.com is "a class or category of artistic endeavor having a particular form, content, technique, or the like." Genres can be anything from mystery novels, letters, to even texts of Twitter posts. Almost everything we see, read, and perceive is a genre of its own. This definition can make genres sound like meticulous and strict groups of identical items, but if we really take time to examine genres around us we are able to discern the vast variety of possibilities within one genre. Because of the flexibility of genres, the internet has been flooded with "genre generators" that can pretty much generate just about everything within a genre without necessarily wandering out of the genre's conventions. These "genre generators" can help the ordinary genre novice to learn more about genres by allowing him to examine which conventions prevail throughout the randomly generated genres.

In order to understand more about genres and their conventions in relation to genre generators, I visited four different genre generators. The first genre generator I visited was SCIgen,(pdos.csail.mit.edu/scigen) which is a website that can supposedly publish a research paper "written" by you or someone else by simply entering your or any other name. Now, just because it generates a paper doesn't necessarily mean it makes any sense. Through not so careful examination, it's easy to see that the generated paper, well, makes no sense. However, at a quick glance it could fool just about everyone. But how is this possible? Well, when you think of a research paper there are several things that come to mind in terms of what it should include and what it should look like. When someone thinks of a research paper they probably think of an extremely long paper with countless so-called "big" words and an extensive list of sources and just as many authors. This is exactly what SCIgen provides you with. It generates a "research" paper with a fancy title, the "authors," plenty of "big words," many, many pages, and a lengthy list of sources. So, if to the regular onlooker this paper looks like any other research paper, then these expectations might represent the conventions of the genre of a research paper. This is not to say that research papers are by any means simple, but that by meeting certain expectations or conventions, anything has the ability to pass of (at least for a short period of time) as a certain genre.

The second website I visited was pandyland.net/random. Pandyland is a website that generates a random and probably ill-humored comic strip by randomly assembling three random pre-drawn images including the same two characters, Simon and Finlay. Seeing these two average looking dudes on the same, monotone, purplish gray background again and again can seem boring, but the combination of terrible jokes and awful facial expressions makes it a worthwhile experience, at least for some. While I did not find all the generated comics humorous, certain combinations made me chuckle. After generating many of these comics I realized that not much about them changed. As previously stated, the three pictures always include Simon, Finlay, or both plastered on a monotonous purplish gray background. Both of them are always wearing the same boring outfits. Finlay wears a green long sleeved shirt and jeans and Simon wears a burgundy long sleeved shirt with khakis. All these traits sound awfully boring, but add some crude humor that somehow makes fun of modern society, funny facial expressions, and bam-- you have created a hilarious comic at the click of a button. Pandyland didn't always turn out funny, but the conventions of a comic strip were always present.

The third genre generator I visited was memegenerator.net. MemeGenerator required a bit more effort than the previous, as I had to choose an image and then caption it myself. I was too lazy to make my own, but by looking at the already existing memes I was able to decipher the conventions of a meme: a funny picture, a not always funny caption, and the uncomfortable feeling of having seen the meme (just kidding, or maybe not, judge this yourself).

 The final genre generator I visited was http://www.everypoet.com/haiku/, which generates a random haiku at a click of a button. Much like SCIgen, this website generates a Haiku based on the conventions of a haiku: "seventeen syllables, in three lines of five, seven, and five, traditionally evoking images of the natural world" (google.com). Again, much like SCIgen, the haikus don't necessarily make sense, they merely follow a pattern.

Genre generators don't always generate something that makes sense, but by giving the generated genres a second look it is easy to see that these genre generators work because they all do one thing in common: they all meet the conventions of a genre.