Ashleigh Hatsell

Professor Rob Cole

ENC 2135
February 10, 2017

Digital Artifact Analysis with Diversity

One of the many online forms of presenting videos, but the most well known of them is
YouTube. YouTube holds a lot of different genres, based on the video you search up to watch.
The first genre that is presented with my artifact is a video that not only features a certain type of
dance, but also encompasses a song, or piece of music. This music video includes a song called,
End Of The Affair, By Ben Howard. End Of The Affair shows us genre because of the
diverse elements it contains; knowing the diversity within genre will make the world more
interesting for us. The video itself has two subjects, a man and a woman, that are doing different
moves to the song, not necessarily dancing. Nover Edward of YouTube described it, This is not
a dance video. This is a testimony of a broken heart. A verse from a dying love. A painting from a
broken brush.
When looking at the song, it also has a specific genre, because it is a form of writing. The
way to find genre in a piece of writing is by reading it at face value, and interpreting the lyrics.
The genre presented in this song is dark romance. This being said, the main plot of the lyrics here
is that this man has an affair with a woman, but she leaves him. He then becomes depressed, and
sees her with other people, basically doing the same thing. The emotions he portrays at the end of
the song show he is upset because he was beginning to fall in love with her, but she went and
broke his heart. The lyrics of this song are one aspect that make this video interesting and
categorized in a genre, dark romance.
When the dance combines with the lyrics, a new genre is formed, along with the dark
romantic genre. This is important to understand, because genre is a more complex, fluid way of
categorizing compositions. You can have a main genre which might be a music video. When you
add in the lyrics, it suddenly becomes more dark and depressing shown in my artifact, for
example. Not only does this video have music, but now it has movement and dancing. This
creates another genre within the lyrical genre that is included. The dancing is another genre that
is presented because it is more of an interpretive or abstract element of dance.
The genre of the dance would be considered more of a drama, that is performed through
modern dance. This addition to the video helps to portray at a higher level that of which is being
expressed through the song and lyrics, and emphasizes the main genre of dark romance. An
important factor to remember when in contact with a composition is that all the elements and the
genres that might be incorporated compliment each other in a way that is more interesting to the
viewer.
Genre is more complex than we think it is. There is something that is in direct parallel to
genre known as the rhetorical situation. The rhetorical situation is defined by The Bedford Book
Of Genres as, Its the context in which you create a composition. To put it simply, as a writer,
you have a specific purpose and an audience (Braziller and Kleinfeld 7). In terms of genre, and
my specific artifact, the purpose of this music video was to convey a message to people through
the lyrics and the moves that this is a story that some people might run into during their lifetimes.
The main purpose is for people to feel the emotions that are carried in the song itself, and the
moves that further express it.
The next concept that is included in this rhetorical situation is the audience that the
composition is for. In terms of this music video, the audience is for people that enjoy this song,
because they have heard it. The audience is not just limited to those that like the song, but also
for people that enjoy videos that portray more unique dancing. Every time you compose, you do
so for an audience. Audiences are made up of people - and people can be easily bored, pressed
for time, or generally disinterested. You need to grab their attention and keep it (Braziller and
Kleinfeld 9). This music video, definitely will keep the attention of those that enjoy this song
because, instead of just listening to this song, there will be a visual component to watch along
with it. This could potentially make people enjoy the song more, because they can really see and
feel the emotion that is put into this song.
A constraint is a limitation, or a restriction that is put on something. In this case, genre
has many constraints because, for example, romantic comedies will follow a specific pattern.
You will not typically find a horror aspect in a romantic comedy, because there are constraints
when composing this type of movie. Having constraints on a genre is important, because that is
what keeps the specific genre in that category. In terms of the artifact I chose, the constraints are
that it is a dance video, so it will typically not include people singing in it, because they are the
ones doing the dance. In terms of the lyrics of the music, the words follow the romance aspect of
it. The way the writing happens will have constraints, such that, they will not include anything
comedic, because this is obviously a more dark situation.
In contrast, affordances are the qualities that are given in a genre that can be interpreted
by the individual who is experiencing the composition. An example of an affordance in my
music dance video is that, the dancing follows the music in a sense of it telling a story. With the
lyrics of the music, and the movements that are going along with it, this gives the viewer a
chance to interpret this however they want. Going back to the genre of the video, dark romance,
the affordances of this video are that it is a dance video, but the lyrics are what makes it have a
dark category to it.
When looking at the video itself, the way it is presented on YouTube is important to
genre. The reason for this is because, YouTube is a wide website that can be used by anyone, and
any type of video can be uploaded to it. YouTube has many different genres included on it. With
my specific artifact, there is for sure more videos just like it, even uploaded by the same
YouTube user. The format that something is presented on is important because they can include
compositions of the exact same genre, or in the case of YouTube, other genres as well.
Genre can be more than one thing. Genre can be categorized in so many different ways,
just depending on the type of composition you might be experiencing. Something to understand
about genre is that it is more complex than people think it is. People can just think something is
under one category, but it most definitely can be seen in so many different categories, People
who are open to the diversity within genre will get the complete experience of what a
composition has to offer.

Works Cited
 Braziller, Amy, and Elizabeth Kleinfeld. The Bedford Book of Genres: A Guide. Boston:
Bedford/St Martin's, 2014. Print.

LarkinPoynton. "End of The Affair - Ben Howard | Choreography." YouTube. YouTube,

25 Nov. 2014. Web. 08 Feb. 2017.

Rhetorical Rationale

When looking at the entire scope of this project, from the proposal to the final draft, there
were many instances of in depth revision. My proposal stated what I would be using as my
artifact, and a general basis of how I might relate it to genre. My proposal changed a bit, because
I decided to actually use a different video that I thought would be more in depth to relate to
genre. Moving into the first draft, I wrote down anything and everything that came to mind and
formulated that into my shitty first draft. Using the workshop time, I got really good feedback
from my peers in order to help me make the most in depth revisions for my final draft. I typed all
of my drafts on the computer because I felt as though I could type fairly quickly and easily edit
what I wanted on my computer. Instead of writing things down, and then having to go back and
erase, I used the computer to cleanly revise my drafts for efficiency. This in turn made the
composing process a speedier process for me. Throughout the composing process, I revised a lot
of my general ideas. An example of this would be when I wrote about the lyrical aspects of the
song, I did not include that much of the dancing aspects. After revising and adding in more of the
dance element, I was able to relate the lyrics and the dance to genre because they complement
one another to make genre more interesting for viewers.
Going through the composing process of this paper helped to better develop ideas that
were formulating in my head. I would write something down, and then come back to it later
when I was in the revising process, and change it to help the paper flow better. At one point
while revising for my final draft, an idea clicked in my head, and I was able to incorporate that
idea into my paper, because it was more developed throughout time.