Genres & Blogs

Blog (noun): a Web site containing the writer’s or group of writers own experiences, observations, opinions, etc., and often having images and links to other Web site (Dictionary.com)

Genre (noun): kind, category, or sort, esp of literary or artistic work (Dictionary.com)

What exactly is genre? As you can see from the definition given from Dictionary.com, genre means a category of a literary or artistic work. Genre acts like a guide. It helps you to decide what theme you want to go into or further explore. It is like a distributed network with similar topics. As you decide which book to read or what movie or television show to watch, you are looking into its genre; you are looking at why type you want to see or read whether it be action, comedy, romance, drama, etc. In this case, blogging in itself is a type of genre written online rather than in a notebook or manuscript of some sort. You can connect with others similar to your interest. But how do you know what genre you are blogging about?

Personally, when I think of trying to write into a certain genre it takes me forever to come up with a good idea. I usually go with what’s easy for me like writing a short story on romance or even about what would happen if I were in a certain television show. “There may be themes… and subtexts that explore a given idea, but usually when I begin a new novel – I’ve no idea where it will go and certainly no idea what genre slot it might be crammed uncomfortable into,” said David Rory O’Neill in his blog Abandon Genre?. In essence, there are so many genres that combine together and create a type of masterpiece for a person. Trying to stick to a genre before anything is written can be constricting. So,

“How much should we as writers allow concerns about genre to dictate how we write and what we write?... I would argue that even within these fairly clear genres, too, much concern about staying within prescribed boundaries limits the creative process and results in work that is less satisfying for reader and writer than it could be – if genre were not considered during the writing” (O’Neill).

Now what is blogging and how does genre relate? Well, blogging is a type of literary work but online. Believe it or not, I used to own another blog or two when I was younger on the notorious Xanga.com. I thought of it as an open diary or journal that everyone can see or who we chose to see it. My friends and I were always on it talking about our lives or even dedicated another blog to an actor. You can say it was an over-exemplified status that you post on Facebook or Twitter—with plenty of spelling and grammar errors. But why did we create a blog dedicated to talking about our lives even though to most it was boring and trivial?

As Paul Bradshaw put it in his blog An Attept To Define Blogging As A Genre:

            “Blogging, above all else is conversational. It is social. It is networked…

Blogging is also incomplete, open, and ongoing. It is about process, not product. It is about a shared space.

…it allows you to make a closer connection with readers, which in turn often helps build your understanding of the issues that matter to them. It allows you to be more transparent about the news production process, building trust and news literacy. And it allows you a space for reflection, if you choose to use it.”

In other words, blogging is a place where we can connect outside of school or work. We can even meet other bloggers. Even though my friends and I shared some of the same events, we read it and in a way lived it through each other’s perspectives. You can say it was part of a learning process in whatever way you can take from it just by reading.

Basically, blogging is free. You can write whatever you want. It takes its own form and becomes whatever it is (I am talking about genre). Blogging is never-ending. For this new blog that I have now created, it will be focusing on Marketing, but what is written may not necessarily be Marketing. Because it is such a broad topic that almost anything can go into it, I will relate the topic to Marketing in any way I can so that it will always be the underlying theme. This will be my way of connecting with other Marketing people or those related to Marketing. It will be easier for people to find me or I find them.

On another note, I’ve come across an interesting blog about apologizing called The Blog Apology: A Genre by Peter Kerry Powers. He talks about why bloggers always seem to apologize for being on hiatus. He said, “the blogger who apologizes but lets the reader know that he was really up to much more important or much more interesting things and that we are lucky he is back at all… I suspect this has something to do with the illusion of intimacy that is made possible by interactivity.” This in fact is true because I’ve done it myself once or twice and so have my friends in our old blogs. Like Powers mentioned about the “illusion of intimacy,” we imagine that we have a strong connection with whoever reads our blogs when in fact it is but one post out of millions posted out there. “As if their readers really cared… In fact, the apology is a bloggers plea. Hear me now. Confirm my existence as a writer of some sort or another by clicking on my blog anew” (Powers).

With that said, don’t apologize for not writing a blog post in a long time, because how many people really read each and every post you create? Some blogs may be of interest and some may not. You choose to write it, but the number of readers varies. It’s like choosing what movie or book to read; whatever peaks your interest.

If you'd like, you can take a look at my previous "blog": http://asianangelhottie.xanga.com/