PB1B on generators

Boy oh boy, I can just type my name in and a completed paper comes out? Where was this all those nights in middle school when I was up all night the day before a paper was due? Interestingly enough, and also a great example of what we have been discussing in class in terms of textual genres, every paper produced by the first SCIgen has very particular conventions that all have room for variability, allowing the computer to easily produce paper after paper after just a single click. First off, there is always a title at the top, followed by whatever "authors" you choose to type in before generating the paper. The title always is a topic related to computer science, however the titles are typically to complex for individuals that are not familiar with computer science lingo. Next, the papers always contain an abstract which is a short blurb that talks about the paper as a whole. The purpose of the paper can almost always be found in this section. The differences in the papers become most evident after the abstract, where the papers begin to take different forms. The paper takes on a professional and academic look by its structure, which never really changes. There is a table of contents, followed by different sections of the paper, with short paragraphs explaining that section. The papers usually utilize graphs and diagrams as well, which makes the paper seem more legitimate. Lastly, the paper includes many sources which interestingly are not all used in the paper.
Pandyland.net provides another generator, this time producing comic strips rather than computer science papers. The comic strips that are generated are always 3 separate images that focus on just two characters, one a blond boy and the other a brunette boy. Comic strips are hard to follow sometimes because there is never a backstory to a comic, the reader gets tossed straight into the action. In order to understand the short plot, the reader must also have a basic idea of how comics work. For instance, the difference between a speech bubble and a thought bubble must be understood in order to understand the point of the strip. There is only a couple different images that are used to start each generated comic strip, so the main aspect that changes is the thought and speech bubbles. Typically one of the images from the strip will be a close up of one of the characters as well. The storyline in the comics is completely random and often doesn't seem like it has a point, but the point of the comic is to get a chuckle out of the reader and this is usually accomplished through the absolute randomness of what happens in each strip.
The last generator is a meme generator, which is a genius idea. Memes are easy to create, all they really are is a picture that has a caption on top of it, so they are easy to generate over and over again. The conventions of memes are simple. There is always a picture, and many times it is a recycled picture that has been used many times already. The pictures are usually chosen for a reason though. The picture could be a famous person, a funny face, an awkward photo, or many other things. The caption is what gets people to laugh though. The caption requires two kinds of knowledge, one being what will make the desired audience laugh, and the other being what will be people's first reaction to the image. The first kind of knowledge is important because memes are short, so wording is crucial. The second kind of knowledge is also important because memes are usually extremely relatable, which is the reason people find them so funny.
For an additional genre generator, I decided that easybib.com could fall into that category. Bibliographies are all very similar and have known conventions, but obviously are always different and have some room for change. By entering in whatever works you used when writing a paper, the site will automatically alphabetize the authors and works as well as put the sources in the correct format for a works cited page, which makes a very tedious task much easier.