This Has to Have Some Practical Application…
The Gender Genie predicts whether the author of a text is a male or female. I plugged in three pieces of writing of mine: some fiction (from a female protagonist’s first person standpoint), some nonfiction and a blog entry. Result? The Gender Genie pegged my XY chromosome on the first try, but then thought I was dude based on shots #2 and 3. Assuming this is at all reliable, does this mean that I have a masculine voice in my nonfiction? Does this mean I’d be good at writing in a masculine voice? (The answer is no, because on a fourth try, I submitted some fiction that I’d written from a male first person perspective.)
Maybe it’s just nonsense fun and games, but I’m determined to justify my time spent playing with this by finding some way that this benefits writers. If you can think of one, let me know.
Join Baratunde Thurston (left), The Onion’s Director of Digital and author of How to Be Black, for an entertaining look at creative social media campaigns in our 
