Dickens 1

Brandon Dickens
Enc 2135-37
September 14, 2015
Just Start Writing
There are many different styles of writing, as there are also many different ways to
express yourself. Over time, these variations in style became known as genres, and these genres
developed and branched off into sub-genres and smaller, more specific pieces. Although one
composition may share aspects with multiple genres, they can still be categorized and defined by
their genre. Genres are flexible and can contain a large variety of different styles which still
fulfill the genres requirements. Along with these genres formed genre conventions, which is
what the audience began to expect and appreciate from work within a genre. As these
expectations grew more precise and people with similar interests came together, they formed
communities.
Reddit communities exists due to the features of genres that attract people in as they
come together sharing common characteristics or interests. Communities can form under a
variety of circumstances and have completely different purposes, ranging from celebrating the
success of their favorite popstar, to seeking support after a disaster such as hurricane Katrina.
Communities will grow or diminish rapidly based on the popularity or urgency of the common
interest.
As communities develop, they begin to expect certain aspects of the genre in order to
fulfill their community desires. As an author, one must adapt to the appetite of the reader in order
to sustain the audience and keep them coming back for more. A very clear depiction of this
adaption can be seen through Taylor Swift. Although Swift attained much of her early fame

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through her country music, she has recently converted to pop. Although Taylor claims that she
made this conversion because pop is what felt more natural to her, it is obvious that her sales in
pop music are achieving much more success than her country albums. In the first 19 weeks of
Taylor Swifts newest album, 1989 (her first all-pop album), she outsold both of her last two
albums. Genres have proven to be flexible, but it was difficult for Taylor Swift to maintain both
country and pop styles in her music as they possess very different traits. As a result, she decided
to step away from her country roots and launch into a style of pop. Although many fans may not
have agreed with this shift as it ended their previous interest in Swifts music, her community
grew tremendously as many new fans were drawn in by her new style of music.
When most people think of genres, they tend to think of the most common, obvious
examples such as those found it literature and music. However, genres play a much bigger role in
our lives as they are present everywhere, including: food, movies, television shows, and video
games. As the case with all types of genres, video games possess multiple sub-genres which are
composed of thousands of different individual pieces. For example, a common genre in the
gaming world is the shooter, which can be broken down into first person, third person, tactical
shooter, massively multiplayer online first person shooter, and many more. These sub-genres
each contain a broad community of fans of that style of game. Along with these broad sub-genre
communities, specific games will attract a large community of their own, usually depending on
the competiveness of the game, or if the game is a popular series. Personally, I think that looking
at numbers and statistics are easier to digest than just using words to try to make my point clear.
Especially since a lot of you probably wont know what I am talking about.
Reddit is a large, growing website which is a source for entertainment, social networking,
news, and any interest you have. As a member of reddit, one can join communities of interest and

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play an active role in whatever they are willing to participate in. The purpose of Reddit is to
entertain or educate the viewer through a digital, multimedia platform designed to apply to
everyone interested in a particular category. A lot of times developers will look to their games
subreddit to understand what the community enjoys and what they want changed in order to
further please their customers. Looking at the statistics provided by reddit, we can assess the
differences of genres according to their popularity, for this instance, we will look at gaming in
particular. The general gaming subreddit has 8.5 million subscribers. Individual games could
be considered micro genres under the blanket of gaming but even the most popular games
dont reach close to the attention that the gaming subreddit achieves. Some of the most popular
games today are, League of legends, Minecraft, Dota 2, Pokemon, and Hearthstone, each
attracting a significant amount of attention with 700,000; 440,000; 229,000; 444,000; 253,000
subscribers respectfully but dont even come close to the 8.5 million of the gaming subreddit.
Although r/gaming is a much broader subreddit and therefore it would make sense that it
attracts a much larger audience that is not the only thing causing this discrepancy. As a member
of the r/leagueoflegends subreddit, I know that a huge part of the League of Legends community
would have no interest in joining the subreddit. This community exist for the purpose of sharing
clips and memories for entertainment purposed and also educational texts to help improve the
skill or knowledge of the reader. However, if you cannot understand the language of the
community, you would gain no benefit from it. A significant portion of the League of Legends
fan base exists outside of North America and most of them do not speak English. Since the
subreddit consist of English texts and videos, most people who do not speak English will not
take the time or have the ability to find the subreddit and have the text and audio translated.
League of Legends breaks the barriers of language and allows for a huge community to join

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together with a common interest, outside of reddit a community that will rarely be experienced
in a face-to-face environment and is entirely based on an interest of a game on the internet.
Although composed of many different languages, all can watch and enjoy the game as 27 million
people tuned into the League of Legends World Championship in 2014. I find it very interesting
how I can be playing the same game, at the same time, as someone halfway around the world and
can share that connection with them, share that interest and communality with them. When fans
and players of League of Legends gather together in community they do so to promote the game
and find entertainment through it. As fans, it is always exciting to see your interest grow and
evolve. This benefits you because the more money the company makes, the more money they are
able to put into the game to make improvements and changes in order to enhance your
experience and attract more attention as the process repeats itself.
A very common community young people find themselves in is found through sports
teams. Sports provide perfect conditions for a community to form as members of one team will
join together for a common purpose. I played football throughout middle school and high school
and grew close to a few of my teammates who were a part of that community for a while.
Although many members of that community left and others took the spot over the years, the
environment was still the same and we were able to form a community in which we shared a
common interest in football, and specially the success of our team. This community developed
primarily from face-to-face conversation as we bonded together through mutual loss of sweat
and blood. The purpose of this community was to provide friendships and trust so that as a team
we could perform better on the feel and experience more success.
In a way, individual high school sports are a sub-genre of that sport as a whole. As one
high schools community varies from school to school, and a member of one team would not

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consider himself a member of the rival teams community, they still share a common interest and
are held within the branches of the football community as a whole. Without this rivalry within
the sphere of football, they wouldnt compete, because it wouldnt be competitive if people
didnt have pride in who they played for. All these teams, high school, college, flag football, and
even fans join together to become the community of football. When the community comes
together, they do so to support the game that they enjoy and promote competition through it.
Along with supporting the sport, they are creating memories and friendships that could last a
lifetime.
Genres have a much bigger impact in your everyday life than what you would expect if
you were unfamiliar with what a genre really was. When most people hear genres, they tend to
just think of music and movies, but genres can include any type of composition that can possess
multiple characteristics. A genre is a compositions kind, category or sort and can be expressed in
many ways. With the recent progress in technology, most compositions and communities are
digitally based. As a result, most media has upgraded from the old-fashioned print, to digital
pieces. This means that the mode in which the viewers experience the composition is more often
than not visual and/or audio based. In some communities, such as fraternities and sororities, faceto-face is still a regular medium, but in most communities, face-to-face interaction is rare and
sometimes even weird. As technology increasingly develops and new generations are born, I
would not be surprised to see completely new media that was previously only an idea or theory.
Holographic communication could become a normal thing for everyday middle class families
and new genres and communities could be born.

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WC1: 1530
WC2: 1638