Investigating Genres

There are multiple genres we are studying through this semester, but no other genre benefits the audience more than video essays. Video essays are visually appealing and leave the viewer wanting more.

The purpose that a video essay tends the serve is analyzing other works through audio and visual descriptions. Video essays are great for other videos, movies, and short-movies to be analyzed. This is because it allows the viewer to not only hear what the author thinks of this subject, but also lets the audience see which part of the work is being described.

Viewers usually find video essays when they are trying to find more detail about a subject. Sometimes, the audience wants to know more in depth information about a piece. They may want to know the psychological reasoning behind a movie, or maybe they want to know another fan’s theory of how a character in a television show behaved as a child and how they evolved. These video essays can give viewers closure about certain works because these video essays go more in depth. Normally, these video essays are amateur productions that can be found on YouTube or similar platforms.

The typical audience for a video essay is the extreme fans of a piece of work or those in need of research on a subject. Both of these groups want to know more information about a subject. Those that are creating these video essays are similar. They also care deeply about this subject and want to provide others with their opinion about a piece of work.

One unique characteristic about video essays is that they include both audio and visual components. The viewer is able remember what they think of a specific part of a subject. This also allows them to compare their view of the part to what the author thinks. This creates more ideas and specific information about a subject which keeps these pieces popular. This type of fan fiction keeps interest in subjects that otherwise may have fallen off the grid and failed to reach their full potential as a piece of work.

A video essay is a type of fan fiction. It is a video that dives deeper into a specific subject by analyzing specific parts and deeper meanings within a piece of work. A video essay allows the creator to build visuals and emotions around their subject in a way writing about a topic never could. 

Adrian Pingstone. "Children playing Paperboy on an Amstrad CPC 464 in 1988" 12/31/87 via Wikipedia.
Public Domain License.

Reflection: I had the opportunity to read both Arun's and Emily's post on two of the genres we will explore in this class. Both of these posts did a great job of describing these genres and explaining to me what we are expected create. One thing that Emily's post made me realize is that the quick reference guide will be much more visual than I expected. I did not know that these quick reference guides included pictures along with the text. Arun wrote about video essays and his post helped me confirm what I learned before writing my own post. Based on what these two had to say, I believe that the projects that we will be creating will help expand our talents past writing a standard essay. 

Comment on Arun's post

Comment on Emily Sutton's post