Onion's Rhetorical Analysis Essay

656 Words2 Pages

“The Onion’s” mock press release on the MagnaSoles satirical article effectively attacks the rhetorical devices, ethos and logos, used by companies to demonstrate how far advertisers will go to convince people to buy their products. It does this by using manipulative, “scientific-sounding" terminology, comparisons, fabrication, and hyperboles.
For companies to portray the advantages of their products this article shows how heavily hyperbolized their products are, and uses comparisons to attract buyers. Such is portrayed through customer testimonials. For example, the the man whose back pain was relieved after using MagnaSoles. His statement in the article regarding the shoe inserts were clearly fabricated to the point where it was humorous …show more content…

Have you ever walked through CVS or a local drug store looking for skin-care products, and chosen the one with the words “Dermatologist Tested”, or “Clinically Proven” plastered all over it in bold letters? According to Katherine Corkill from PersonalCareTruth.com “The terms create an illusion in the customer's mind that a medical panel of dermatologists somewhere, has investigated the products thoroughly, and perhaps tried it over a period of time before coming to the conclusion of their endorsement.” The meaning of this term amounts to nothing, yet is utilized to offer confidence to the buyers of the item and to give validity. Another example in the “The Onion’s” article is the women who twisted her ankle and couldn’t walk at all and then could suddenly walk after using MagnaSoles …show more content…

The woman who sprained her ankle mentioned that after seven weeks she felt a major decrease in pain and could walk normally once again, but the MagnaSoles inserts had only been released for one week. It continues with more scientific jargon and goes on to talk about the “healing power of crystals to re-stimulate dead foot cells with vibrational biofeedback… a process similar to that by which medicine makes people better.” the logic in this statement can easily be proven wrong because dead cells cannot be brought back to life, and crystals aren’t a real form of medicine. These two examples comes to show how inadequate and naive customers actually are, they’re baited with false information and advertisement, but because scientists are quoted, and scientific literature is being used, they aren’t

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