The Blogs: 4th Generation

I agree that generations can run alongside one another, but I still feel that we haven't seen all that 4th gen has to offer. But again, that might just be a desperate hope that something good will come of this.

I know that we haven't seen all the 4th Gen has to offer but since the generations run concurrently, the birth of a 5th Gen doesn't prevent the 4th Gen from showing the rest of what it has to offer.

I think it's fair to say that at this point we both agree and are just restating the same thing with different wording, but I still want to post this here so that anyone who happens to glance at the "Latest Topics" list will assume that I got the last word in and therefore was the winner.

Actually Omega, I'd like to disagree with you there.

I got the last word in, thus I am the winner. But thanks for playing.

See, I've always seen 3rd gen as ending with the solstice, which was basically the death of Core Theory, and 4th gen having a tendency to cross over with the aftermath of that. It really all depends on how you define generations, though, whether it's by time or by characteristics. I tend to categorize mostly by start dates, but I think it's also possible for a blog to span multiple generations.

The way I see it, there are good and bad blogs in every generation. I don't think you can say that 4th gen is just the whiny tweenangst blogs. I see the main ones as being the Delmont blogs, The London Librarian, PIFTO, and The Scarecrow Experiment (WYAitD has also played a big part, as has Vivere Disce, but I'd say they're either both 3rd and 4th, or simply 3rd). Then again, I avoid badly-written blogs like the plague.

I think it's fair to say that one of the big characteristics of this gen, perhaps the main one, is character meet-ups. I think there's also been a gradual shift in focus since January from fighting back to staying alive and, when you can, helping others do the same.

Just my two cents on the whole thing.

I wouldn't say 4th Gen is *just* the shitty blogs run by whiny bitches who band together and scream "RESPECT US" like Fanfiction.net's hall of shamers, but it's prevalent enough and there are enough of them that to some of us, that's become the codifier for the 4th Gen (and for the record, I hold Peering In to be Gen 3.5, just because like Wizards of the Coast I enjoy being ornery).

I would actually like to move on into, Gen V. I dislike Gen IV for reasons previously mentioned(see the over connected Pre - Tween tantrum comment), and this is coming from a guy with two blogs(granted one is from a villian's perspective) that are a part of Gen IV. Anti-Matter was originally supposed to stand alone, but at the time I didn't know how to turn off comments.

Honestly, I'm about ready to drop both of them because I feel like I'm Roleplaying on a forum rather than creating an Alternate Reality game. I mean, it looks like I'm shamelessly taking part in Gen 4 and I am, most of the time, but when I look back and see what I got involved in, I just get deflated.

Gen V... Sheesh. This whole Generation phase breakdown is so wonky.

What? Already?

HOLD IT HOLD IT.

Look guys, there isn't a "Gen 5" yet. In no way. Gen 4 is just starting. I take Gen four to be about interconnectedness. The Nappa, the Big Old groups are merely a side effect.

As someone who has closer ties to Gen 4 than Gen 3, I see a different trend in the Mythos. Gen 4 is about trying to explore how far we can push the boundaries of the Mythos. How far can I push my blog towards action before it becomes a Mary Sue? How crazy can I make my plot twists before people complain? Can I change some fundamental, previously unexplored parts of the mythos?

This has lead to a lot of poorly executed blogs, and yes most of the bloggers aren't as good as previous blogs. However, this trait has been present for FAR longer than you people are saying. (Rose's Blog, H(a)unting, Scared, to name a few)

----


Also, I Don't associate my blog with any groups. I don't feel the groups are helpful or condusive to the mythos. Also, groups give some people "Power" in the mythos, which I think is always a bad thing. We are all equals in the Mythos. Only are writing makes us different from each other.

Also, LiL is Gen 3.5, due to its creation before occuring before the Solstice but use of interconnectivity..

(If this seems like a rant I apologize. People be hatin on my generation...)

Starting with a group really hurt my blog, actually, so I concur.

Seems like mine fits into gen 4.

I mean, my intent is for him to eventually become aware that there was a massive attempt to counterattack Slendy that failed, but for now I am going to try to stick to the paranoia and anxiety that characterizes the early blogs.

My blog was Generation Four back when in Generation Two's timeframe. And it was deleted, and there was much rejoicing.

Seriously? I wouldn't get too caught up in generations. It is pitiable that "Generation Four" is rather poor, but the solution might simply be to soldier on and produce good things. The, ahem, "pretweens" can be ignored; a perfectly valid "in-character" reason is that the kids telling stories are exactly that.

If you want to go down that sort of route.

@ Allan: Calling them out is the worst thing you could do! Just don't read their works and everything will be fine.

SliceandDice wrote:

HOLD IT HOLD IT.

Look guys, there isn't a "Gen 5" yet. In no way. Gen 4 is just starting. I take Gen four to be about interconnectedness. The Nappa, the Big Old groups are merely a side effect.

As someone who has closer ties to Gen 4 than Gen 3, I see a different trend in the Mythos. Gen 4 is about trying to explore how far we can push the boundaries of the Mythos. How far can I push my blog towards action before it becomes a Mary Sue? How crazy can I make my plot twists before people complain? Can I change some fundamental, previously unexplored parts of the mythos?

This has lead to a lot of poorly executed blogs, and yes most of the bloggers aren't as good as previous blogs. However, this trait has been present for FAR longer than you people are saying. (Rose's Blog, H(a)unting, Scared, to name a few)

Everything Slice said is like music to my ears. But I have a few different things to say.


Gen IV gets a bad name from a few bloggers (I won't name names *Cough*FrapandtheTeamMagickpeople*Cough*), but it really isn't as many as people think. I know, there's a ton of shitty Tween Slendy-blogs that can go in the trash, but just take a look at all the good ones. True they're no DiD, JAF, or ST, but they don't have to be. To hit those heights is hard enough, but to try and hit higher, is just insane. Expectation is, in my opinion, what brings the quality down. I'm not saying they don't have to try, because they do. It's just the goals they have to reach are so damn high.

How many people here have a Slender Blog, either finished, in progress, or even an idea? A fair few. And we all write, and inter connect, and other stuff. We are 4th Gen. But it's also taking the Mythos into new areas. It's like the crazy experimental stage, where everybody's taking LSD and trying to find God and Inner Peace. We're pushing boundaries, to see just how far we can go before we brake it. And whilst we may look back and go "WTF is this shit," at least we had fun writing it in the moment. I mean, look at all the Omega references. Who among you didn't laugh, or at least had a sly smirk when you saw him being referenced?

Whilst it's true that 4th Gen is likely to end up a stain on the Mythos (with so many blogs, but so few amazing ones), but what about Gen 5? What's to say that it won't turn out worse then 4th Gen. And it's not like we can just rush into Gen 5 either. Each Gen starts and ends when it chooses to. Really, we shouldn't be asking "Can we have Gen 5 yet", but instead "When will Gen 5 start?". I think I have an idea about that (Robert Segal might usher it in with his death. But that's just a thought I've been having. It's probably wrong.)


Anyway, I can't really comprehend the Generations system, and it seems off-kilter to me. But it'll go on.

tl;dr

Gen 4 isn't so bad, but what's to say Gen 5 won't be worse.

Everything Slice and Shayde said.

SliceandDice wrote:

HOLD IT HOLD IT.

Look guys, there isn't a "Gen 5" yet. In no way. Gen 4 is just starting. I take Gen four to be about interconnectedness. The Nappa, the Big Old groups are merely a side effect.

As someone who has closer ties to Gen 4 than Gen 3, I see a different trend in the Mythos. Gen 4 is about trying to explore how far we can push the boundaries of the Mythos. How far can I push my blog towards action before it becomes a Mary Sue? How crazy can I make my plot twists before people complain? Can I change some fundamental, previously unexplored parts of the mythos?

This has lead to a lot of poorly executed blogs, and yes most of the bloggers aren't as good as previous blogs. However, this trait has been present for FAR longer than you people are saying. (Rose's Blog, H(a)unting, Scared, to name a few)

----


Also, I Don't associate my blog with any groups. I don't feel the groups are helpful or condusive to the mythos. Also, groups give some people "Power" in the mythos, which I think is always a bad thing. We are all equals in the Mythos. Only are writing makes us different from each other.

Also, LiL is Gen 3.5, due to its creation before occuring before the Solstice but use of interconnectivity..

(If this seems like a rant I apologize. People be hatin on my generation...)

Maybe I rushed a little, I'm calm now. Anyway, this is why I love Live in the Light, because it doesn't take the crossover with other characters as an obligation to form some team that seems to think it can just start thrashing the Slender Man just by existing(cough, Team Magick). As for NAPPA, it seems like they had some really decent interconnected Plot going on there, until they decided to y'know, not do anything, and barely even mention the fact that they had formed a group for the association and pursuit of Proxies. Honestly the only one who acknowledged the groups goals after it's initial founding was it's Leader. (This post was a lot longer, but the magic of highlighting and mis-clicks has reduced it to what you see before you.)

The whole Generation breakdown is flawed so no wonder the 4th Gen has such a bad rap. I mean, mostly people are trying to salvage their little works so they try arcing or joining organizations to name drop and coattail ride. I think it is a valiant effort but in vain. If your blog is shitty, it is 4th Gen. If your blog is really good, then it is Genless and gets reduced to a couple letters everyone recognizes.

Can't win for losing it seems sometimes. It'd be really helpful if:
A. There was a standard of measurement
B. There was a list that broke all the known blogs down to their Gen based on A.

Yeah, I really hate thefact that I jumped on the bandwagon of organizations.


Hated it so much later on, in fact, that I made Peter defect from the organization, and he is now fighting against them.



NOTE: At the time I made a blog, I was unaware of the other group blogs, so I kind of thought I had an original idea....if that helps at all.


>noob

My thoughts on the matter, Generations apply to all Slender stories and here is my timeframe:
Gen 1: 6/8/09 (Creation of Slender Man)-5/21/10
Gen 2: 5/21/10 (Beginning of Seeking Truth and Everyman Hybrid)-9/18/10
Gen 3: 9/18/10 (Beginning of White Elephants)-10/16/10
Gen 4: 10/16/10 (Beginning of Let Us Keep Living)-Present Day

Well that is the problem, everyone has their own timeline of how they break down. There is no overhanging rules as to where a blog should be placed. I've already stated that I believed it was broken down the simplest way, chronologically:

2008-1st Gen
2009-2nd Gen
2010-3rd Gen
2011-4th Gen

Breaking it down that way could leave no room for error in where a blog fits in Generation wise. But, for whatever reason, it was not broke down in any way that makes sense on a large scale, but instead is broken down individually so no one really knows what fucken generation they are in.

The main reason for that is quality concerns. It is claimed that the 4th Generation is utterly rubbish and mindless action-movie trash (or whichever descriptive insults you wish to use), so people would rather be not-in it.

If there were no such concerns, I'd recommend the years (or dates, at least) method, myself. This way, we can describe trends in the blogs without being overly worried about offending people. Obviously, many works are multi-generational (e.g. Marble Hornets) and could be said to transcend the generations. But given that the generations are purely arbitrary, there's no reason for that to be so.

Lisa, you know there was no Slender Man in 2008, right?

From how I understood it was something like this, with a bit of overlap:

Gen 1: Jun 2009-Apr 2010, basically the first season of MH and JAFool, not sure what else is in this period, really the stuff that's just people being followed by Slendy
Gen 2: Mar 2010-Sep 2010, ST, DiD, The Tutorial, EMH; basically where people start to actually try to fight/outrun the Slender Man
Gen 3: Sep - Dec 2010, basically Core Theory, people on a much larger scale trying to fight against the Slender Man, ended (for the most part) with zero's Solstice battle
Gen 4: Jan - ? 2011, the current era, with Core Theory having died out, the interconnectedness between series remains, not really too sure what else would be a feature of Gen 4 though....

I think I really messed that up, but it's at least the basic principle of how I had thought the generations were broken up. Obviously it's not completely accurate trying to go off both dates and kind of the.... tone (not sure that's what I'm going for, but) of the stories. MH is still a Gen 1 story and I think TT would also count as G1 even though it started in G2. Just my confusing, rambling two cents.

Are Generations really that big of a deal? It was just something I posted on Slenderia after I (as well as zero, who made a similar post shortly before me) began to notice how trends came and went in the Mythos. The generations were meant to comment on how the Mythos developed, not categorize blogs into neat, clear cut segments. There's no big dividing line that says "THIS BLOG IS GEN X WHILE THIS IS GEN Y!"; it all depends on how the blog is written, what stylistic choices the author makes, etc. I'd argue that several long running blogs can cross different generations, as the author develops and changes their blog.

But seriously. Simmer down on trying to figure out where everything fits in. This is chaotic fiction; it's not all nice and neat. Besides, these are just arbitrary numbers. Does it really, really matter whether a blog is labelled Gen4 or Gen3?

They cannot be that big of a deal. If you accept that a blog can "change" from one generation to another, it's clear that there are no clear-cut distinctions between them and therefore generations are fluid. They are not islands; they are linked. A work can "move" from Generation 4 to Generation 2, you could say. If a blog can change, you can only classify it generally as a generation.

Or something. It's getting late and thus this has becoming rambling, most likely.