A “genre” majority of the students my age are very familiar are social media posts. I’m not sure if that would fall under the category of a genre, but it’s a pretty broad section of media that a large percentage of the population have been exposed to. The social media platform that I use the most is probably twitter. The one thing about twitter is its word limit. All the texts have to be under 250 letters, which leaves very few room for creativity. Because of this, the posts tend to be sweet and concise, and usually contain images and such as well. This generally is a good thing for the users, because people don’t scroll through social media to read massive walls of texts. People usually just scroll through the page mindlessly to gain quick bits of information. This also probably ties in with the medium that it’s used on. People use social media everywhere. no matter where they are. Whether it be on the go, or in public places, it’s a more fast paced form of medium compared to a newspaper, or a magazine or such where it’s more of a relaxed enjoyment type of activity. The target audience of social media is generally younger audiences. This is also reflected on the language and content of the posts. The content is usually based on problems and issues that individuals our generation goes through, such as school, relationships, family issues, and whatnot. All these elements combined help make twitter a successful form of medium that allow its users to effectively communicate ideas with one another.
The genre in “Mother Tongue” seems to be some kind of persuasive text. It seems like it could be something found in a book to help guide new college students about the choices they’ll be making for college. The personal anecdotes and all the explanations of the choices the author makes it seem much more personal and relatable for the readers to agree and go along with the message that the author wishes to convey.
