While I have not had extensive time to work on my Digital Genre Wiki, I am trying my very best! That said, my genre is the DIY in all its glory. Whether its bath bombs or home improvement, the DIY has taken the internet by storm and needs to be treated as a genre same as any other, despite its sometimes quirky nature.
Something I’ve never really thought of before is the level of interactivity that can exist with a DIY website or video. Myself being a person who doesn’t actually think to do it myself, it has slipped my mind consistently that the videos are specifically set up to make it possible for the audience to follow along. This level of interactivity not only with the website and clicking of links on a page but with the physical materials being used on screen for your own following along is much higher than that of other digital content because of its ability to easily add a physical in-house element.
Honestly, one of my largest pitfalls so far in this assignment is simply the absence of time. These weeks leading up to midterms are always rather work-intensive for me and often overwhelm me quite a bit more than I would like, but that’s not really the fault of the class or professor. That’s simply how colleges function. Currently, there really aren’t any major triumphs on the horizon for this project. This assignment is also very much not like work in my other courses. The only aspect that this shares with normal paper writing is the need to cite information in MLA and research through the library search engine.
Our general discussions and readings have brought up some thoughts from other classes and reconfirmed and disputed some points, such as Lunsford and Ede’s point in “Among the Audience” where they quote “For how better to avoid misunderstanding and failure […] than to exclude, to disenfranchise those who by their very presence in the arena of discourse raise increased possibilities for communicative failures”. This ties directly into the idea of the Habermasian public sphere of discourse which Dr. Robertson teaches. I can assume that this quote is being sarcastic and therefore agreeing with Habermas and his views on public discourse by viewing discourse that does not give a proper voice to everyone as non-discursive.
“Among the Audience” also gives an interesting look at the role and blurred lines between audience and creator. In the Youtube realm of DIY videos and Youtube creators as a whole have struggles frequently with this line and come under fire because of it. Many creators remind us, the viewers, frequently that we are the audience. This is a response to heavy pushback and entitlement on the part of the viewers for more content in an incredibly timely manner because they see the content in some way as their own and rightfully theirs since they participate, comment, and generally interact with it. This proves difficult for DIY Youtubers as they are frequently pushed to keep up with trends and be days ahead of other DIY-ers to such an extent that home life and social interaction outside of their work could become limited.
Works Cited:
Lunsford, Andrea A, and LIsa Ede. “Among the Audience”: On Audience in an Age of New Literacies.