The audience intended from an Instagram post is one's own followers, and the purpose of the post is to get those followers to like and/or comment on it. Obviously not all people are just looking for a superficial "like" though, but in general people tend to feel better about an Instagram post where he/she gets more like as opposed to a post where he/she gets fewer likes. There's a sense of personal satisfaction that comes from other people appreciating your post, and this common purpose for likes is present in all Instagram posts.
Instagram posts also often have witty or clever captions to go along with them, everyone knows a good post has a sweet picture and a killer caption. Sometimes a good caption will make you laugh, other times a good caption is motivational, and there are other types of captions as well. The captions often reflect the intentions of the post. Instagram posts as a genre all commonly have these captions, and these captions are often used to make the picture available to particular genres of people that enjoy similar things through the use of hashtags. For instance, if I posted a picture from a hike I took and added the hashtag "#nature", all people that look up that hashtag could see my photo that normally wouldn't. This is ironic because by using these hashtags, the post is actually being categorized further into its own genre of nature. This is actually a helpful thing though, because by using the appropriate hashtag and finding other people that are interested in taking and viewing pictures of similar things you can also gain more followers and consequently more likes (or at least the potential for more likes).
The style and the tone of Instagram posts have a little bit more variation in them when compared to the other aspects discussed already. A lot of times an Instagram posts' tone will reflect directly on the vernacular and lifestyle of whoever posted it. When I look at my Instagram for instance, a lot of my friends' captions are inside jokes that are intended for a small group of people from my high school. But just because I mainly follow friends from my hometown, many other Instagram users have followers and follow people that they have never met. There are Instagram pages intended for sports fans, to display artwork, to showoff photography skills, to inspire others, to show what you did last weekend, etc.
There are still a couple more things that make an Instagram post unique. Although this is obvious, Instagram is mainly used as a mobile app. Instagram does have an online site where you can log in, see all the pictures that would normally be on your feed, and comment on things as well. However, there is no direct way to post to Instagram online, which is somewhat unique. Instagram has become so popular that it is also used as a way to advertise now, because millions of people around the world use Instagram.
I think it’s really cool how you used an example of social media as your textual genre. I like your point about how using the hash tag “nature” also categorizes it further into its own genre of “nature.” I also like that you pointed out that an Instagram caption reflect the intention of the post. That is defiantly a convention of an Instagram post that is rarely broken. I think you did a great job of describing what makes an Instagram post, an Instagram post while also explaining the several ways that conventions could be broken. For example, some people post to get as many likes as they can with random followers, while others only connect with people from their hometowns that they know.
ReplyDeleteI really liked your choice of genre. I found it to be very interesting and a creative choice of genre. It is pretty crazy to think about how social media has revolutionized and how it has become its own genre. It is weird to think that we care so much about things like Instagram and seek such approval. I liked how you mentioned how we really do spend so much time thinking of captions and how we appeal to our audiences. Another thing I agreed with is how audience affects text. Like how you said you mostly have close friends on Instagram therefore so captions tend to be inside jokes whereas if it were a different audience, it would not be as personal. I think you can elaborate I little more on what makes an Instagram caption an instagram caption but other than that I really enjoyed your post. Very interesting!
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