Cultural Rhetoric

Have you seen this? Anyone travelling through the Philadelphia area has seen this billboard. It simply states, “I hate Steven Singer!” This expression of seemingly unprovoked hatred for a random man appears to be the object of an angered citizen. However, it does get the attention of the individual who saw it. Because the individual saw it, she will Google it on her handy dandy smartphone. There, she will click on the link to the story that sparks this creative ruse of a billboard. She will find that the quote, “I hate Steven Singer!” is actually the utterance of a customer who bought an engagement ring for his fiancé and later another ring to commemorate their twentieth anniversary, resulting in a baby shortly later. He then stated these four words and inspired this phenomenon, all due to the amazing skill of the advertisement team at Steven Singer Jewelers. Though it is kind of a far stretch, this advertisement wanted to draw attention to Steven Singer Jewelers and attempt to ge...

While watching television, I saw a commercial for "5-Hour Energy." The Commercial had a Athlete named Thomas Degasperi, or "Tgas." He was water skiing while his voice was saying that he was a water skiing champion. This right away made me think of the fallacy of Illegitimate Authority. He continued to say that he knows what all champions have in common, the hatred of losing, and that is why all of his energy goes towards winning. Then said simply, “5 Hour Energy.” This clearly is False Cause, just because Thomas Degasperi drinks 5 hour energy, does not mean that everyone who drinks 5 hour energy will be a champion. Also, we should not listen to him just because he is a champion at water skiing, most people do not even water ski. The argument did, however, make logical sense, making it seem as though you will be a champion because of drinking 5 hour energy, but did not make logical sense. The rhetoric technique was not effective and did not make me want to drink 5 ...

There is a Samsung commercial with Seth Rogan and Paul Rudd. The commercial begins with the two of them sitting in a commercial, fighting over who is more equipped to be on a Samsung commercial, as the “Next Big Thing”. They then begin to make jokes at each other, putting each other down. Seth Rogan pulls out a phone, trying to prove to Paul Rudd that he is the “Next Big Thing”, but Paul also has one. The Samsung guy finally comes out and welcomes the two of them, and informs them that they are both the “Next Big Thing” and will work together. The commercial then shows the guys brainstorming on how the make a commercial that will be a really good one. While they are discussing ideas, Lebron James is brought in on a video chat on a tablet. This commercial uses a lot of ethos in it. Samsung is using famous people like Seth Rogan, Paul Rudd, and Lebron James to get you to want to be a part of the “Next Big Thing”.  Because the commercial uses famous people, it makes you think tha...

I was riding home in the car with my mom the other day when a commercial came on the radio. It was about two girls who had just left a club and were heading to a different club. It was clear from their voices that they had been drinking. All of a sudden there was a loud crash and the sounds of breaking glass and car alarms. They had gotten into an accident and the driver keeps apologizing saying, “I thought I was fine to drive: I was only buzzed.” To this the passenger, who had broken her arm in the accident, responded saying, “Oh, you were only buzzed? Well that makes it all better.” And she snapped her arm back into place. “Really?” the driver responded, “You’re really ok?” “No that doesn’t fix anything!” she replied and cried out again as her arm snapped back.  After which an announcer said, “Buzzed driving is drunk driving,” and the commercial ended. This was trying to prevent people from getting buzzed and then driving. It used an appeal to fear to try to per...

I recently saw a commercial on a body building DVD while watching videos on YouTube. It was for a website called crunchessuck.com where there was a really muscular man talking about how crunches take way too much time to preform to actually get results. He used pathos by relating to how most people hate to do crunches and he used that to introduce what the scientists found to help burn fat in your sleep. He used ethos here by going to doctors that knew what they were talking about in order to make men feel more comfortable in buying he product. Finally, he used logos by saying, “All women want to see and feel rock hard abs, so you should use this technique to get more women.” All of these Rhetorical devices were used in this commercial and did convince me to at least check the website out.

I was in my house watching the Panthers vs. Seahawks game. So this commercial came on about babies and how to protect them. The speaker/actor said that we should use a car seat that will protect the baby if an accident was to happen. This made me think "What if this happen to my family and my nephew or niece." The speaker had used a logical fallacy. The logical fallacy was Appeal to Fear. This really scared me because I wasn't used to being afraid about a commercial. He wanted to also me and my family to feel like we were left out also. They had a director come in and display the car seat and say "Everyone has it and do it for your children." The argument made logical sense, because they were trying to get their main point out to the audience which was me and my family. They wanted to draw more consumers to their project, which in this case it was the car seat and the protection of the baby. One part about the commercial I didn't understand was why t...

As I was walking through Walmart, I came across a form of this advertisement. I stopped in my tracks. This was a direct representation of a logical fallacy. And it was working. The slots for the products were missing quite a few of its members. As I reflected on the power of words to ensnare the mind, I looked around at other advertisements and realized the predominance of illogical fallacies on children. This astounded me. This advertiser wanted me to buy their mouthwash because it will make me smart. I will be smart if I use this mouthwash to fight cavities this Halloween. This didn’t make sense to me. Nothing in that Listerine mouthwash will increase my IQ or help me pass my Omnibus test. The advertiser meant to convey that the use of mouthwash is smart, but he twisted it to fit the crazy and illogical minds of little kids that like cool pictures and animated creatures on their toothpaste tubes and t-shirts. In one respect, it makes sense to the child with one meaning, but to ...

When I was watching TV a couple of days ago there was a commercial that came on with two monkeys looking through each other’s fur for bugs. I wasn’t really quite sure what the commercial could be about because it was going on for about five to ten seconds and it wasn’t saying anything. But then towards the end of the commercial, it said something along the lines of “You never really know what you’re dealing with: check your credit report today”. This made no sense to me whatsoever, and I found it to be a false analogy (an analogy between two things that are not similar enough to warrant an analogy). Two monkeys eating bugs off of each other is not similar enough to checking one’s credit report.

While browsing on Google I found an old advertisement.  The ad was for Lustre-Crème Shampoo. It featured Marilyn Monroe, known for her beauteous looks and her parts in different movies. One of her movies was Gentlemen Prefer Blondes. Lustre-Crème was attempting to sell their shampoo through the use of fallacies. By saying that Marilyn Monroe that tells you nothing about the actual product: it simply attracts you to the pretty face in the picture. Using this as an argument of why someone should buy your product is quite illogical. Just because Marilyn Monroe uses it doesn’t provide assurance of its abilities. They attempt using snob appeal by trying to make the audience believe that they could be like Marilyn Monroe if they use the same product as her. They use appeal to illegitimate authority by using Marilyn Monroe to promote their product. Although she herself is a customer, this is still rather irrelevant. She herself has no type of expertise in hair products and knows nothing t...

This girl is fighting poverty, she along with many other women. She has the power to change her world, and you have the power to help her. CARE is an organization working with women to fight poverty. This is an example of pathos, the appeal to our emotion. It is how many advertisements convince you to do or buy something. . This advertisement does use the logical fallacy, appeal to emotion, more specifically appeal to emotion. This is when they distract you by making you feel sorry for something. In this advertisement it is the women in poverty. This advertisement above uses pathos along with this logical fallacy. For example they use a photo of a sad, but beautiful little girl. It catches your attention by focusing on the girl. They made the background black to put more emphasis on the girl as well as to emphasis the sadness and hopelessness. It is an advertisement for helping women fight poverty. They give you the ‘warm and fuzzy’ feeling by telling you that ‘She has the power t...