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"An idea can turn to dust or magic, depending on the talent that rubs against it."
-William Bernbach

Everything has a purpose. In the world of rhetoric, writers and presenters are magicians who meticulously craft their work to be a masterpiece in disguise. They are illusionists who transform a simple message or request that could be delivered a thousand ways into an experience, an interaction between reader and writer, which is meant to leave a mark. Each word is a magic fiber; each sentence is an enchanted thread. The needle that is a writer’s pen sews them together to become patches of paragraphs and ultimately the robe that the magician wears to deliver his message and cast his spell. However, one pulled thread or one weak fiber could unravel a magician’s robe, and the spell he wishes to cast could be lost. The enchantment will not exist, and the magician must go back to practicing his spellbinding skills.

In the rhetorical world, there are no accidents or ignored circumstances. There is no audience member forgotten or purpose undefined. A magician has his target and keeps his eye fixed on it as he chooses exactly the way to captivate it. Words, designs, and deliveries are the potions a magician mixes into a concoction to fit his purpose, situation, and audience. The subtlest nuances and details are some of the most powerful spices that potentially have the biggest effects. The way a letter curls, the note a voice hits, or the tone a word rings can infiltrate emotions, logic, or willingness to believe.

We live in a world whose colors are shades of rhetoric. Rhetoric is in everything we read, see, hear, write, touch, smell, and taste. Things are the way they are for a reason. They send us messages we receive many times without even noticing. Everything has a purpose, and it is accomplished by rhetoric, a magic that can enchant us in an instant, but takes a lifetime to master.

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Summertime, But Is the Livin' Easy?

Since the semester is coming to an end, I’d like to discuss the rhetoric behind the time we all look forward to: summer break. I think for a lot of people, the school year has four phases: 1. Happy to be back with friends and activities/work to do instead of boredom; 2. Contentment, after the initial “honeymoon phase” with school; 3. Misery where the work is just not fun anymore, some friend drama could creep in, or things are overwhelming; 4. Anticipation of summer.

Then I started thinking, how great is summer? After all, look at phase one where people actually WANT to come back to school because of the friends, entertainment, occupation, and challenges. I have a feeling “summer break” is just a time we have been taught to idolize. TV shows, other kids, parents, and even magazines have tried to show us that summer is good because there is no school. TV shows often show kids wanting to get out of school and having more fun in the summer. Other kids talk about how much free time they will have in the summer. Parents say they can’t wait for summer because it means they do not have to wake up early for their kids. Magazines show us summer clothes and accessories, models playing beach volleyball, and gorgeous weather. I’m not saying that these are bad things, but I don’t think they are totally true.

Sure, some people have natural preferences for summer, but there are parts of summer that can annoy us just as much as homework stresses us out. One major aspect I can think of is humidity. Once we experience that, we wish for winter or fall again.

I think the glorification of summer comes from the fact that we associate it with stress-free time. However, does summer even exist in that sense after a certain time, or ever? For adults who work full-time, the work does not end, and their “vacation” is dictated by their vacation days. For kids, life can certainly get easier, but many have assignments they need to complete for the beginning of school in the fall. Others go to camps where they need to wake up early anyway, and those can be similar to school depending on their structure.

So, what makes it so great? What we associate it with through learned habits and past associations. If I am right about that, or am on-track with another idea that might not have hit me yet, I would say it is time to change how we perceive work and school!

Who's Going?

What is the best way to spread the word about an event? Trying to recruit new people to try new things is something that I find difficult because I have to convince a total stranger that he/she wants to do something that might seem completely random. Maybe he/she has done it before; maybe he/she never wants to do it; who knows? However, the way I went about inviting people to try something new to some and familiar to others is through a Facebook event invitation.

Success? Not so much, at least not yet. Let’s talk about the rhetorical situation of Facebook events, especially for events that need mass invites. First, if I want people to accept the invitation to try something new, and I don’t know them well, I think it is difficult to give them just facts without a personality behind the message and hope that they come. People know not only nothing about the event, but they also don’t know anything about the person inviting them. Also, not needing to physically say, “no” or decline the invitation makes it easy just to deny the opportunity with the click of a mouse.

This way, there is almost a snowball effect. People can be persuaded to choose to go or not depending on how many people they see as “attending,” even though many times those people do not even go. When they see many people under the “declined” category and only a few under “attending” and “maybe,” they assume the event is not worth their time and click “decline invite” too.

This results in only the people who were initially interested going, and other people not thinking again about the event. Another part of the problem is how much value new people can perceive in the event. If they think it will not teach them anything new, that they will not have fun, that they will feel awkward, or that they think it is purely a waste of time, they see no value, don’t spread the event through word of mouth, and attendance flat-lines. So, in this case, Facebook turns out to be the impersonal place where people act on impulse with the click of a mouse in many cases. Hopefully the two seconds the thought crosses people’s minds to try something new plants a seed that will grow into a burst of ambition in the future.

We all see it, but how?

This week I would like to talk about the rhetoric of underage drinking. In college, it is no secret that it happens, probably more frequently than not, and being around it enough has given me a lot of time to see it. As someone who does not drink, I can say that my perspective and that of my friends is different. I’m not saying that I condemn people who do it or think any less of them. They can choose to do something, and I can choose not to, no bitterness involved. People often ask me why I don’t drink, and I would attribute that to the fact that I see it differently than a lot of people who do. I see it as illegal, unsafe, and a way to make oneself do stupid things when not kept under control. The fact that it is illegal for people under 21 is the main reason I don’t do it, even though people always say, “well, you won’t get caught unless you’re really bad. Everyone does it, so cops could practically arrest anyone on the streets and they won’t choose you.”

Though they do have a point about there probably being a large selection of people to stop for drinking, and the police do know that it is going on, I would not want to take the chance. I already feel like I am judged merely for being outside on a Friday night. At parties, a few guys have thought they could get away with being inappropriate and seemed mortified when I said, “I’m not drunk—at all.” Aside from its illegality, I see not drinking as a way to be safe, while my friends do not see that big of a risk because the masses engage in it, and State College is a pretty safe area.

However, there is a huge difference in how we both “see it for what it is.” The kairos of the judgment about drinking has a huge influence on how I see it versus my friends. They judge it during their experience, and I judge it during mine. Their timing happens to be when they are under its influence and mine happens to be when I am completely level-headed and around others who might be a little off balance. They think about how fun and carefree it is when they are in a midst of giggles, surrounded by all of their friends, making new friends, having guys compliment them, wearing outfits they thought about for a few days, out socializing, etc. I am thinking about it when they are giggling about things that are not even funny and have guys “complimenting” them only to try to take advantage of them half of the time because they too are not in the right state of mind. I also think about it when I am helping them walk home, get a phone call at 4 a.m. to help clean up someone’s mess, listen to obnoxious conversations when I am doing homework, and hear extremely dramatic stories about how little they remember. Again, I am not saying that I look down on people who drink. They have a good time that way, and I have a good time just dancing and not having to worry about being stopped.

Several people have told me they only started drinking in college, which I think is another instance that relates to kairos. The connotations that drinking takes on in college are different than those from before, and probably after, as demonstrated by parents who discourage it. How I see it is that the time and place where these thoughts occur has an impact on how people regard drinking. What do you think?

Hidden Message

I recently saw a link on a friend’s Facebook wall that led to a T-shirt company’s website. While looking at the different designs and shirts they have for sale, I thought they were pretty catchy and appealing. Then, I noticed that the initials of their company, which they used as designs or logos on some of the shirts, spelled a word in another language that you would not want written on your clothes. For native English speakers, it would not be something that would strike people right away as bothersome because we would read it as the initials rather than a word. I don’t think it was an intentional choice on the part of the designers, and my guess is that they don’t know that what they wrote has meaning in another language. Then I got to thinking if this would hurt their business at all.

Does the rhetoric behind such an unintentional choice end up having an effect on profits?

A shirt is something producers need to persuade consumers to buy mostly based on looks. Of course, there is a comfort element and the fact that people want the shirt to actually look good on them, but the initial attraction to the shirt comes at a glance. The first impression counts a lot. When designing clothes in general, there must be some rhetoric. Different design elements send different messages. Some of these are textual, like the one in this case, and others can be the result of a certain cut, fit, neckline, etc.

With the shirts I am talking about, the visual element says hip, young, energetic, artsy, clean, fresh, etc. The shirts feature bright colors, clean text that is arranged and bold with block letters, and no pictures. Some of the shirts have symbols, but for the most part, they use simplicity to draw the eye.
They have a message to them, which also helps to add some appeal. The idea to support self-expression and art is a common theme among the shirts and within the company. The positive message is one that makes the target audience support a feeling, and that could appeal to pathos in addition to just the look of the shirt.

However, the text is what could take away from this. People who understand the word in another language as opposed to just seeing the company name/logo could be turned-off to what they would have otherwise considered a good-looking shirt.

Hmmm. I don't think she wrote that...

Today I saw a very interesting Facebook status on my friend’s wall. It was totally egotistic, and said that she was the best, could do anything she wanted whenever she wanted, and nobody should even bother trying to stop her because she rocks and everyone else sucks. The first thing I thought was, “Okay, obviously she did not write this.” I was right. She had gotten “hacked” by another one of her friends.

I am sure almost everyone who has a Facebook has seen a status posted on someone’s wall that he/she did not write. The ones I have seen are usually exaggerated statements that the person himself/herself would never say, immature humor, or something generally weird. Usually, they are so obvious that people know right away that someone else wrote the status as a joke, so what is the point?

Is it the thrill of knowing you had temporary control over someone else’s account? Is it that people think they will actually create something so scandalous that it will go viral? Is it that people are really bored and want to have some usually short-lived entertainment?
Is it another way of communicating with friends? Who knows?

I don’t think that anyone really takes the time in a “hacked” Facebook status to try and convey any type of underlying message, so I am questioning if these are an instance where there is practically no rhetoric. It does not seem like anyone is trying to convince people to take any action other than laugh, and it certainly does not seem like people are trying to civically engage or persuade people.

Perhaps this is because the faux statuses I have seen are typically made by friends of the account owner and not bitter enemies or ex-friends. Those people are usually not trying to get any revenge or hurt their friends, and even if they were, thinking of the means of doing so, Facebook might not even be rhetorically effective. (I am not trying to condone getting revenge or using the Internet in mean ways though!) What do you think? Is there any point to a “hacked” Facebook status?

"Gotta Catch 'Em All!"

Image From: http://www.google.com/imgres?q=mewtwo+pokemon+card&hl=en&biw=1293&bih=718&gbv=2&tbm=isch&tbnid=UgS0hp2yIixYHM:&imgrefurl=http://www.totalpokemon.com/tcg/base/10&docid=2kYC9AR4NQvowM&imgurl=http://www.totalpokemon.com/images/tcg/base/010.jpg&w=301&h=410&ei=oXlhT-OwKIHX0QG8_NnSBw&zoom=1&iact=hc&vpx=901&vpy=272&dur=46&hovh=262&hovw=192&tx=106&ty=160&sig=116761782303579820487&page=1&tbnh=123&tbnw=93&start=0&ndsp=29&ved=1t:429,r:7,s:0

After mentioning to a friend that I still have my Pokémon cards, I was challenged to a battle. (Yes, by a college student.) However, there is one major problem: I have never known how to actually play the game. Actually, I didn’t even know there was a game, or a TV show for that matter, until after I bought the cards—in 1998. I didn’t even buy the cards. My mom did. As a first grader, I was on a very tight budget.

What made them so appealing?

A lot of kids I knew had the cards just to look at them and trade them for better-looking ones. They were purely superficial and served their purpose that way. Rhetorically looking at them, the picture is the main thing we see when we look at the cards. It is the biggest, and is centered, taking up about half of the page. Young kids are drawn to the mystical, imaginary creatures they see and think they look cool. When they are holographic cards with sparkly backgrounds, there is an extra desirability because the cards look unique, and for people playing the game, they usually possess more power. The visual appeals are an appeal to pathos on a first impression.

Another part of the Pokémon fad I would like to think about is the phrase, “Gotta Catch ‘Em All: Pokémon!” Though this serves the purpose of helping to establish the brand name, building ethos, it also works as a subtle way to command collectors of all levels to get out there and buy more cards (or, at least, stay engaged with the product through trading). Having some of the Pokémon is okay, but in the end, you’ve gotta catch ‘em all.

As evidenced by my challenger, the fad has not ended. There are still people out there trying to catch ‘em all. But, there are still remnants of Pokémon’s glory days, like myself, who only bought the cards as first-graders trying to be cool.