I saw a commercial the other night on TV while watching Amish Mafia. Right when I saw this commercial, I realized that there was something wrong. Let me start off by telling you what the commercial was: it was a commercial for Direct TV convincing you that having Direct TV is better than having cable. An actor by the name of Rob Lowe comes on screen stating that he has Direct TV and then an alternate dead beat dad version of him comes on as well stating that he has cable. The real Rob Lowe would state all the pros about having Direct TV while the dead beat dad would state the cons of cable, which included his children fighting over what to watch, but that’s their step dads problem while he gambles in an alley and then he saves money by having surgery in a motel room.
Here’s the part that struck me, at the end he said “don’t be like this me, get rid of cable and upgrade to Direct TV”. Apparently if you don’t want to be a dead beat you have to have Direct TV. There are two logical fallacies within this which are hasty generalization and appeal to illegitimate authority. It’s saying that everyone who has cable is a dead beat and the only way out of that is to have Direct TV, and they had, an actor, Rob Lowe star in the commercial as an authority figure even though he has nothing to do with the subject, and to be completely honest I didn’t even know who Rob Lowe was.
Although the commercial seems funny overall, I think it is giving too extreme examples. I feel bad for the people who have cable!
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