I swear the finished product is going to be WAY better than this...

My working draft! Keep in mind that it's a working draft, and I've still got a lot of work planned to put into it! But here it is for now. I would be super happy for any feedback.
Also, I don't have a conclusion yet. Conclusions kill me every time I write an essay. So I'm holding off on that at the moment, to spare your eyes from the awfulness that it would be.

Thesis Draft

Since the internet’s inception, it has been providing new platforms with which to share everything in one’s life. The way people interact with their friends, family, and mere acquaintances has been affected by the world wide web, so it is not surprising that the way in which people create and share content is changing as well. From vloggers to poets to actors, the internet has provided a forum for creative growth and expansion. Naturally, a huge part of this is literary in nature. Viewing three differing aspects of creative work, new media has allowed for growth in the way creators present content, and in the way society views and consumes said content, and this growth is inherently beneficial in keeping literature an active part of people’s lives. This new media allows for the creation of new genres and subgenres, new formats, and new levels of experience.

One way new media has expanded is in the rise of the amateur on new media platforms that allow creators to publish their own work. This has allowed for vast quantities of “fan fiction,” in which writers create stories involving the movies, television shows, and novels they consume. New media has also allowed for an eruption of bloggers, poets, and novelists who have new ways to present their work to a relatively large audience without the struggle of getting it in print. Does this mean that a vast amount of the work one encounters on the internet will be of novice quality? Undoubtedly. But does that mean it is inherently negative? No. If one views literature as a means of becoming engaged in the lives of others, experiencing greater empathy for those around them, and growing into a generally better citizen of the world, then any exposure to even awful, unrefined, amateur literature proves beneficial for the consumer of it. One example of this can be seen in Tyler Knott Gregson, a poet made famous by the popular blogging site Tumblr, on which he publishes daily haikus on love and typewriter poems. While Gregson is an amateur in the dictionary definition of the word (writing isn’t his day job) his work certainly merits the literary respect that many published poets receive. Better still, this amateur has what many published writers still seek – a large and engaged audience. Gregson’s followers “reblog” his work and his daily poetry posts often easily reach thousands of “likes” and “reblogs.”  

New media likewise allows older content to be recreated in new ways, as seen in The Lizzie Bennet Diaries, a modern day adaptation of Pride and Prejudice, by Jane Austen, in which the story is presented in vlog format on YouTube. The production provided audiences with a new way to connect with a classic story, and taught the same moral lessons as the original novel along with a few new lessons of its own. The audience consisted of people who had never read Pride and Prejudice and those who had read it too many times to count. The Lizzie Bennet Diaries was the first of its kind, creating an entirely new subgenre that has yet to be named. Not only is it a modern adaptation, it is also a fictional story conveyed on a medium that was not created with fiction in mind.

New media has also allowed for subgenres to be created, and for genres to expand and be elevated to new levels of experience. This is most seen in the expansion of performance poetry, which the growth of has been enabled by online video sites like YouTube. Performance poetry heightens the level of immersion of the listener by drawing them into the poem and allowing them to view the full emotion of the poet performing their work. The act of watching a poet can feel much more participatory than simply reading their words on a page, which allows an entrance for people who might otherwise feel put off by poetry. Performance poetry has also allowed for even more growth within itself, including poems performed by more than one person. The expansion of traditional poetic genres built by new media is beneficial in its access level for consumers. For many, genres like performance poetry bring literature to those who would otherwise not be willing consumers of it. The ability to simply share a link with our friends makes spreading work that a person loves extremely easy, giving people more ways to connect with each other. And if one considers the way poetry, especially performance poetry, allows people to gain insight into the lives of others, then it is easy to see how consuming this particular brand of literature can help people become more engaged and empathetic towards those around them.