In this publication about MagnaSoles shoe inserts, The Onion uses a satirical tone to show how willing people are to buy a well-advertised product even though it may be unsuccessful in its purpose. With the use of “scientific-sounding literature” throughout the piece, The Onion creates a sense of credibility for the MagnaSoles product and a satirical aspect with the use of this “literature”. By using words such as “pseudoscience,” “vibrational biofeedback,” “Terranometry,” “pain-nuclei,” and “comfortrons,” the article is appearing to have a scientific background rather than satiric. To the average public consumer these words may seem appealing, however all of them are not scientific terms, they are actually forms of pseudoscience. But advertisements …show more content…
By using what seems to be a professional for their product, advertisements create a sense of backing for the product. In the following interview with California State University biotrician Dr. Wayne Frankel, the reader is told about how MagnaSoles help control the Terranometry of the foot. “Special resonator nodules implanted at key spots in MagnaSoles convert the wearer's own energy to match the Earth’s natural vibrational rate of 32.805 kilofrankels. The resultant harmonic energy field rearranges the foot’s naturally occurring atoms, converting the pain-nuclei into pleasing comfortrons.” Even though this interview seems to be filled with scientific reasons to buy this product, that’s what the marketers want you to think. The Onion uses a made up profession, university, and scientific information to attempt to create a fallacy of an expert believing in the product. Another example of how consumers will trust a product advocated by an expert is found in the following customer testimonial from chronic back-pain sufferer Geoff DeAngelis; “Why should I pay thousands of dollars to have my spine realigned with physical therapy when I can pay $20 for insoles clearly endorsed by an intelligent-looking man in a white lab coat.” This testimony proves that consumers would be willing to buy a product just because “an intelligent-looking man in a white lab coat” stereotype
“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 instance, they claim that MagnaSoles are “popular among consumers” (52-53). This use of luring pathos is creating a situation where the reader recognizes themselves as a consumer and that they should be conforming to also like the product. This is exactly what the speaker wants the reader to feel. This need to conform is a clear highlight to The Onion’s purpose of exposing how easy it is for advertisers to make a consumer buy in to the product. Additionally, the speaker puts the reader in a vulnerable position when a user of the product says to “try to prove that Magnasoles didn’t heal me!” (61-62). This is used to make the reader feel like this user of the product. The user thinks the product is great and he even goes as far to challenge the reader to find problems with his claims. If he is challenging the reader than more often than not the reader will just accept what is said and believe it. Once again The Onion mocks how consumers often feel when addressing a product’s claims. The seductive pathos allows for proof that consumers believe anything when they are tested to conform and believe
In the article The Onion the satire being made criticizes how easily it is for people to believe in an advertised product even though it may be false. The purpose of the writers use of diction, exaggeration, and sarcasm is to make it clear as to how manipulative people have become believing in any products shown in ridiculous advertisement. In this specific article it targets the way an advertisement uses exaggerated stories such as Helene’s or Geoff DeAngelis in order to try to create a connection to an everyday person. Moreover the way they make themselves more credible by their use of a credible source such as the doctors. In total the way an advertisement builds itself to make themselves seem credible to sell their product.
... consumers into purchasing their products. In addition, expert perspectives are always a good quality thing in product marketing. “Dr. Wayne Frankel, the California State University biotrician who discovered Terranometry.” (line 35) Biotrician is not a scientific person or word, but consumers probably do not know that and they will trust it anyway and the fact that he is a doctor is enough to get them to purchase the product. Biotrician is false information to lead the consumers into purchasing the item,
“The Onion Field” directed by Harold Becker is a true story, set in the 1960’s, about two men named Greg Powell (James Woods) and Jimmy Smith (Franklyn Seales) who meet through a mutual friend. The two men become close and soon become business partners. They go around together robbing places such as stores to get money. On one excursion to gain some money, they are stopped by two Los Angeles Department police officers named Karl Hettinger (John Savage) and Ian Campbell (Ted Danson). When Campbell asks Powell to step out of the car, he grabs him and puts a gun to his back, pushing him around to the other side of the car. Powell forces the other officer, Hettinger, to hand over his gun to Smith. Without a choice he does so. Powell and Smith take the officers prisoner and drive them out to a middle of nowhere onion field in Bakersfield, California. Powell ends up shooting Campbell once in the mouth, but not before mentioning the Lindbergh Law. He later shoots him four more times while Smith shoots at Hettinger who has escaped. After Smith escapes with the car, Powell is arrested and blames the shooting on Smith. Over several years an investigation and trial goes on to find out the true events of that night. Both men are sentenced to the gas chamber and wait for their time in prison. In the meantime, Hettinger is suffering from severe post-traumatic stress disorder, as well as depression and keeps having nightmares about what occurred that night. He loses his jobs and begins stealing as a coping mechanism. After some time, Powell and Smith get a re-trial and are sentenced to life. After the trial, Hettinger is offered a job in Bakersfield, near the onion field. He and his family move out there. Eventually he learns to deal with the...
In her unforgettable memoir, Barbara Ehrenreich sets out to explore the lives of the working poor under the proposed welfare reforms in her hometown, Key West, Florida. Temporarily discarding her middle class status, she resides in a small cheap cabin located in a swampy background that is forty-five minutes from work, dines at fast food restaurants, and searches all over the city for a job. This heart-wrenching yet infuriating account of hers reveals the struggles that the low-income workers have to face just to survive. In the except from Nickel and Dimed, Ehrenreich uses many rhetorical strategies to illustrate the conditions of the low wage workers including personal anecdotes of humiliation at interviews, lists of restrictions due to limited
To the members of the support group Naïve People who are Addicted to Mass media and Believe Anything They Hear or Read Anonymous my purpose of being here today is to help you better understand how to analyze the mass media you come across. Mass media is the news, newspapers, magazines, the radio, and the television. The way I’m going to analyze it, is by rhetorical analysis. Rhetoric is how effective the writer is in persuading the reader by using speech and compositional techniques. In order for you to be able to become more apprehensive when reading information, I will be analyzing the ad for Vitaminwater featuring Kobe Bryant. Vitaminwater was introduced in 1996. It is a mineral water that is given out by Energy Brands. Like many sports drinks they use famous athletes to speak for them and promote them. Vitaminwater’s ad with Kobe Bryant is successful because it persuades people to buy their product because it’s, “The Most Valuable Power.”
In his 2011 article, 2 cheers for the maligned slacker dude, Nathan Robin of the Onion attempts to reveal the unseen potential that perhaps lies within America's bachelors. Robin addresses the seeming lack of masculinity that has arisen in previous decades, and the effects that this is having on the 20 something males of today. In the article, the author makes the point that men in their early twenties have always been creators and accomplishers, and that despite appearances, this is still true today. Robin adds that these males are occasionally blind to their own potential, and while many appear to be under achievers, they show initiative, and promise. The author uses Mark Zuckerberg as an example of this almost dormant brilliance,
In the article, “The Onion has Finally Confirmed There Were No Survivors In The Challenger Disaster,” the author and speaker, Mr. Newton, informs in a rather satirical manner, that the newspaper company can finally state an obvious point. However odd, that it be 32 years after the initial event and a week before it’s anniversary. Mr. Newton explains how several tests and investigations were used so he could dictate to readers, mostly teenagers and middle aged Americans, of the newspaper without fault that, yes, everyone on the ship had died. In a rather haughty manner, he accuses other newspapers of being too hasty and providing information without evidence. The most important thing however how his tone sounds informative and eventually turns to verbally abusive.
The creator's utilization of style stresses the tone that real advertisements use to sell their products. Nonetheless, this creator spurns that tone by utilization of wry and misrepresented word decision. For instance, he ridicules the scientific words typically used by applying made up words. He creates terms like “pain nuclei,” “kilofrankels,” and “comfortrons.” By inserting this humorous word usage, the author is making an association to scientific vocabulary typically used in marketing. Consumers are frequently deluded by vocabulary that they are unfamiliar with, and this author is satirically demonstrating that. In particular, he uses the term “pseudoscience” which sounds, to a clueless ear, like a legitimate field of study. On the other hand, a sharp peruser will
Marketing a product and making it sound believable is difficult and a lot of the time, advertisers spout random nonsense that appears to make sense for the purpose of getting it to sell. The article exaggerates this falsified ethos by using intelligent sounding words and phrases like, “[MagnaSoles] is a total foot-rejuvenation system.” It even went as far as inventing its own measuring system and pseudoscience; the kilofrankels along with its corresponding “science”, Terranometry. In doing so, the author demonstrates
The author uses appeals to false science throughout the article to shed light on the blatant and outrageous falsity of some of today's "scientific sources". The author quotes Dr. Arthur Bluni, "the pseudoscientist who developed the product for Massillon-based Integrated Products." Many references to Bluni and other "pseudoscientists" passive-aggressively attacks the
The author uses supposedly technical words that prove how people can be easily tricked into believing what they hear from scientific experts is always true. The developer of the product, “Magna Soles”, uses words like “magnetism” and “biomagnetic field” to describe the product, and persuade the consumers that the product is effective; however the words aren’t being used accurately. In addition, MagnaSoles employed a new brand of “pseudoscience known as Terranometry” created by Dr. Wayne Frankel, the word “pseudoscience” simply means, practices mistakenly regarded as being based on scientific method. Which emphasizes how companies reach out to people’s ignorance and stupidity in order to persuade them into purchasing the product without any accurate evidence. Lastly, Dr. Wayne Frankel uses “scientific” words named after himself to make MagnaSoles seem accurate. By using words like “Kilofrankels” illustrates the irony, by creating a unit of measure simply named after the founder of Terranometry, which has nothing to do with MagnaSoles. This Market strategy is very affective because it allows the pro...
Living in a world where many prefer to believe what is shown to them, rather than doing some of their own research, can lead to consequences. (Figure 1) Some people believe electronic cigarettes are a safer and healthier alternative to the actual cigarette because of how they are advertised. “Because they [e-cigs] deliver nicotine without burning tobacco, e-cigarettes are purported to be safer and less toxic than conventional cigarettes. Despite these claims, there’s still no real data on the effects of e-cigarettes (positive or negative), yet marketing materials still bill them as a healthy choice” (Worthington emphasis mine). Drug advertisements normally show the beneficial side of
Living in the age of attention economics and information overload, we expect instant and reliable gratification and this has lead to us becoming lazy, easily influenced and susceptible to multiple fallacies. It is because of two main fallacies, confirmation bias and appeal to authority, that we become a part of the pseudoscientific market. The best examples of this can be seen in the rapid increase in popularity surrounding Power Balance bands a few years ago and the great interest we have in astrology. 2009/2010 saw an Australian company release hologram bracelets that were meant to increase sporting ability, power a...