Inspirational quotes on Instagram

Introduce Your Genre

1. Identify your tentative “underappreciated” genre (or subgenre)

My tentative genre is inspirational quotes on Instagram. These quotes are everywhere, but I want to analyze the quotes that are posted on Instagram accounts that devoted solely to posting these quotes. What draws people in? What makes them follow these accounts? What types of quotes are they posting? What audience do they have? These are questions that I hope to answer.

 

2. What is interesting to you about this genre? Or, why might it be significant or otherwise worth paying attention to?

This genre is interesting to me because it is something that is trending nowadays. The internet/social media are flooded with these kinds of quotes. One of the most interesting things about these is that people use them for many reasons that vary from wanting to help/encourage others to getting back at people/cursing people out. The significant thing to pay attention to is the real reason behind posting and reading these quotes. The real question is: Do these quotes actually inspire anyone? Are they most helpful to those reading or to those who wrote them? Those questions are really what makes me consider this genre significant.

 

3. Tentatively, define/describe your corpus (collection of texts/examples)

These quotes come in many shapes and sizes but they are pretty standard in some aspects. All of them are relatively short. Most of them are written on top of an image, usually images of people or nature. Most of them are about life- motivation, self-help, encouragement, love (bad love/good love) and so on… the struggles we face in our day to day lives. And not all of them have to be that great apparently. There are some that are pretty dumb or like stating the obvious. But I guess they are still considered inspirational quotes because they are on top of an image or say something about life- good or bad.

 

4. Provide links (and/or titles) of five samples. (Try to gather samples from more than one “place” [or type] in order to obtain a diverse and accurate representation of the genre. For now, choose samples without significant deviations).

 

Describe the Context

1. Setting: Where (in what context or medium) does the genre appear? How and when is it used? With what other genres does this genre interact? How?

These inspirational quotes can be found anywhere from google to social media to wall art. The ones I am specifically looking at are on Instagram. They can be found on people’s personal Instagrams and on hashtag searches (Ex: #inspirational quotes) but I am looking at the ones under pages made specifically for inspirational posts. These pages are created for the sole purpose of posting inspirational quotes.  So the setting is inspirational quotes pages through the means of individual posts that are posted on top of an image. This genre interacts with another genre that is “comments people post under these inspirational quotes.” Which is a whole other genre in itself. Those comments can actually tell us a lot about the audience. The kind of people who read these and what their feedback to them is.

2. Subject: What topics, issues, ideas, etc. are common to this genre? When people use this genre, what are they communicating about?

The issues/topics that are common in this genre is anything related to life really. Some are religious, some are funny, some are depressing, some are uplifting. There are quotes about overcoming obstacles, learning from your wrongs, being grateful, appreciating life/loved ones. On the same page, there are various types of quotes. They are not all centered on the same topic. People use this genre to communicate their personal beliefs as well as other people’s beliefs. I think people who post these only post the ones they agree with, which in a way makes them biased. I don’t think people would post quotes they don’t agree with or think are stupid. Then, that means that the quotes they post can say a lot about the posters. Who they are. What they believe. Their perspective on different things in life. For example: A pessimistic poster might post quotes that are more depressing like, “not everything in life is a lesson, somethings are just to make you suffer.”  An optimistic person might post quotes that say things like “everything in life is a lesson, so if you are going through something, remember, its part of the lesson.”

3. Writers: Who writes the texts in this genre? Are multiple writers possible? What roles do they perform? What characteristics must writers of this genre possess? Under what circumstances do writers write the genre (e.g., in teams, on a computer, in a rush, for their profession? for fun?)?

There are some quotes that were said or written by famous people and made into images, some are common sayings and others are just personal thoughts/ideas. The ones I will be looking at are mostly personal thoughts. The people who post theses inspirational quotes are rarely the actual writers. So I guess both the writer and poster can be analyzed different. The posters don’t really need to posses any significant attributes to post them, just being tech savy is enough to post these. Maybe knowing what the people who look for these quotes like is an attribute a good poster needs to possess. Posters also have to know a bit about photo editing, in order to create the post. Putting together the quotes and imagine in a way that makes sense and attract readers. The real writers though, must possess a certain level of creativity to produce these. They also try to reach people’s humanity by writing things that are relatable. Things most people live. The writers and posters can also create these anywhere. The actually quote can be created by the writer at any time, anywhere. And the poster can search up quotes on a site like Google, and then created the posts by choosing the image/background they want.

 

4. Readers: Who reads the texts in this genre? Is there more than one type of reader for this genre? What roles do they perform? What characteristics must readers of this genre possess? Under what circumstances do readers read the genre (e.g., at their leisure, on the run, in waiting rooms)?

The readers are people on social media who follow these inspiration quotes pages. The readers look for and like these posts probably because they motivate them and can relate to them. The types of readers who read these may go from people who are really into them to regular people who just think they are interesting. Some readers probably even search them up when they are having a bad day.The only attributes readers must possess are the ability to read and interest in “inspiration” for their lives. The readers can read these quotes anywhere- on their laptops, tablets or cellphones. Because of that, they can read anywhere. Doctor’s office, their home, work, gym, bathroom (most likely lol). Anywhere. Their accessibility is significant because I think it’s what contributes to the reader’s interest. If they were only found in books, like in libraries, they wouldn’t be as practical to read and probably would have a more select audience.

 

5. Exigency/Purpose(s): Why do writers write this genre, and why do readers read it? What purposes does the genre fulfill for the people who use it?

Writers write these quotes probably because they are inspired by something, by the situations they go through in life. They may wanna share what’s in their minds, on writing. Maybe that is their way of getting things off their chests. But my focus is not on the actual writers of these. My focus is on the people who post these, who are almost never the actual creators of these quotes. The people who post these quotes can be doing this for a few reasons. They may be posting just to get followers; maybe their main purpose is having lots of followers, so they post what they know people want to read or need to read. Another purpose for their posting might be because they genuinely want to help people. They might think that by posting they will help encourage people and get them through hard times as well as give them inspiration. Some positive ones let people know they are on the right track for example. They also might post because they needed some kind of self-help quotes for something they were going through and decided to keep it on their page as a reminder, when they need it again. Who knows??

The readers read these quotes for mainly two reasons, I think. Because they’re bored and are just going down their feed. Or because they actually need something positive. In this case they might actually go to the page and check out other quotes “in their times of need.” They might want to be motivated when they’re feeling down. They might need encouragement about a break-up, making good out of something bad. They might not always need those quotes, but they may appreciate them and are fond of them, that’s why they follow the page. One day, maybe a quote fits their situation and it makes them feel understood, and that they are not the only ones going through whatever they are going through.