A Rhetorical Analysis Of The Onion

MagnaSole shoe inserts seem to have everything a person could ever ask for; they can heal any ailment, grow back limb, read your horoscope, and even make you fly. While these claims are hardly accurate, they might as well be when compared to the satirical claims iterated in the article. By utilizing often-hyperbolic appeals, The Onion efficiently drew attention to the utter falsehood and senselessness of modern advertising in order to common on its absurdity and lack of foundation.

By drawing on and emphasizing the predictable “but wait there’s more” strategy often utilized by infomercials, The Onion successfully drew attention the the absurdity of the appeal that- by itself- is regularly successful. The rapid-fire structure of the article of the article simulates the strategy commonly used in advertizing in such an obvious way that a reader cannot help but question its integrity. Comments such as “pseudoscience” and “kilofrankels” (both being made-up terms) were used to intentionally emphasize the sweeping omission of fact that permeate the article, while its vaguely asyendetonic syntax draw attention to the faux company’s attempt to brush over the truth.

The article even went as far as to cite one of the obviously unreputable “scientists” that it interviewed as saying the MangaSoles have a “foot-rejuvenation system”. As an clearly manipulated fact, this claim forces you to reconsider all of the company’s claims and plays directly into the Onion goal of forcing you to question both the company’s integrity and the reality of the claims made by every company. This argument is only strengthened as the article progressed, as the author seems increasing reasonable compared to the compromised ethical appeal of