By Riley Thompson
The concept of genre has historically been tied to long-form, institutionally produced media such as film, television, and literature. However, the rise of smartphones and social media platforms has radically transformed how genres are produced, consumed, and defined. In this new environment, genres are no longer shaped primarily by studios or authors, but by algorithms, user behavior, and the affordances of mobile devices.
On platforms like TikTok, Instagram, and YouTube Shorts, we encounter fast-evolving "micro-genres" such as GRWM (Get Ready With Me), unboxing videos, cooking hacks, life updates, reaction videos, and social commentary reels. These are structured forms with recognizable rhythms, visual norms, and audience expectations—meeting the basic criteria of genre even though they arise organically through user communities.
Mobile genres tend to be:
These new genres challenge traditional genre theory in multiple ways. They collapse boundaries between fiction and nonfiction, blur distinctions between audience and creator, and thrive on seriality and repetition at hyper-speed. Yet they also show continuity with older forms: TikTok dances echo the musical; vlogs inherit the confessional mode of melodrama; comedy skits are structured like slapstick shorts.
Genre in mobile media is also tied to identity performance. Users adopt genre conventions not just to entertain but to signal belonging, irony, or critique. Hashtags serve both as organizational metadata and as genre tags—tools for both discovery and categorization.
In short, the smartphone era hasn't destroyed genre—it has exploded it. Genre now exists in dynamic interplay with platforms, devices, and networks, making it one of the most fluid and participatory forms of meaning-making in contemporary media culture.
Sources: Theorists of digital media, platform studies, mobile aesthetics, and short-form storytelling.