Jerrel Herndon Professor Linda Hofmann Writing and Inquiry 1101 31 October 2013 Edgar Allen Poe Fan

Page What legacy did Edgar Allan Poe leave? Who appreciates the life and work of this astonishing figure? According to the community that I have recently become a part of, writer, Edgar Allan Poe is an inspiration. His work has allowed people to think in many different ways and his quotes have inspired ideas throughout the community. The community that I am a part of is an Edgar Allan Poe fan club, a group of people that love the work of Edgar Allan Poe and embrace his life and work. There are 12,089 members of this community, and it is a community that anyone can join. I am one of the 12,089 and I am a very new member. People that are interested in becoming a member simply press a Follow button at the top right corner of the home page. This is very similar to social media such as Twitter or Instagram. Every member of the community seems to know at least a small portion of Poes work and appreciates his creative mind. Under half of the members have an obsession with Poe and his work, but it is easy to spot the ones that do. The ones that do have devoted a serious amount of time to praising Poe and studying all of his work. This becomes obvious when looking at their posts, seeing that they have work from some of his writings that are not as popular as his most well-known pieces. But there is no real way to rank any of the members of the page.

The layout of the page is very similar to social media sites as well. The page looks to be a mixture between Facebook, Twitter and Instagram. Under the Posts tab, there is a timeline of posts, where people can post pictures or famous Poe quotes. Most of the posts are the words of Poe, coming directly from his work. Others my come from other poets or just famous quotes throughout history. Following is an example of a post that a member would post to the page:

(Edgar Allan Poe Fan Page, edgarallanpoe.com, 27 October 2013) The members of this community communicate by commenting on other members posts. When someone comments on a post, the person who originally posted the picture or quote will receive a notification and may comment back to the person. Members can also share a post of another member. This would be equivalent to retweeting a tweet on Twitter. The difference is

that when a member shares a post, he or she can share it to other social medias, such as post it to Facebook or Twitter. A member can also Like a post. This would show up as 1+ to show that one more person liked the post. The page does not refer to this as Liking a post, but this is the best way to express what is taking place. It is showing that other members are showing appreciation and acknowledging the post. This is consistent with all of the other social media sites that I previously mentioned. The difference between this site and other social media sites, is that this site is dedicated to the life and work of Poe. All posts are related to his life or his work in some way. In other words, each post has words directly from Poes work, or they are quotes that could be about his work. Also, because this site is a fan page, it tells about the life of Edgar Allan Poe. There is an About tab at the top of the page, that gives a biography of Poes life. The biography of Poes life is on the right side of the page. It describes that Poe was born January 19, 1809 in Boston, Massachusetts. It goes on to tell about the events of his life, his schooling history, who he married and his family life, his most popular pieces, and where and when he died. Following is an exert from the biography in the About tab:

Story
Tagline Daily quotes and pictures. (unofficial) Introduction Edgar Allan Poe (born Edgar Poe, January 19, 1809 October 7, 1849) was an American author, poet, editor and literary critic, considered part of the American Romantic Movement.

Best known for his tales of mystery and the macabre, Poe was one of the earliest American practitioners of the short story and is considered the inventor of the detective fiction genre. He is further credited with contributing to the emerging genre of science fiction.[1] He was the first well-known American writer to try to earn a living through writing alone, resulting in a financially difficult life and career.[2] He was born as Edgar Poe in Boston, Massachusetts; he was orphaned young when his mother died shortly after his father abandoned the family. Poe was taken in by John and Frances Allan, of Richmond, Virginia, but they never formally adopted him. He attended the University of Virginia for one semester but left due to lack of money. After enlisting in the Army and later failing as an officer's cadet at West Point, Poe parted ways with the Allans. His publishing career began humbly, with an anonymous collection of poems, Tamerlane and Other Poems (1827), credited only to "a Bostonian". (Edgar Allan Poe Fan Page, edgarallanpoe.com, 2011) On the left side of the page, there is a link to the exact site of the fan page. Along with other links to related pages. These links include a website that shows a variety of famous quotes. These quotes on this page can be from poets, philosophers, presidents, or celebrities. The other links are direct links to the information pages of other great minds such as Albert Einstein and Aristotle. There is also a Photos tab on this page. This tab is a collection of all of the pictures that the members have shared on the site. The setup of this tab is very similar to the Photos tab of Facebook. This section separates the pictures on the site into albums. The albums are pictures

from posts, the profile picture of the page, and pictures from random additions. These pictures may be actual pictures of Edgar Allan Poe, or drawings that people have done of him. There are symbols that represent his work and his messages, or collages of words and pictures that embrace his ideas. The final tab of the page is a Videos tab, but it is empty. All of the videos that would be on this page have been merged into the Photos tab. But the videos on the page are clips from movies that has someone playing the part of Edgar Allan Poe. Some other videos are people reading his poems and also reading some work of their own. This community is not just a community of people that appreciate the work of Edgar Allan Poe. Nor is it a community that just wants to post pretty pictures and post famous quotes because they sound good. This community is a group of people that enjoy the life and work of an amazing mind, and want to share his legacy with other people that feel the same. A community of aspiring poets and philosophers that use this mind as a guide and outline to our own work.