Funny Commercial

     So the other day I came across an old German commercial that I thought was hilarious, and I decided to analyze the rhetorical devices that made it so entertaining. 

     This commercial relies heavily on pathos in order to convey its message. The commercial starts off with a father and his son at a grocery store, when the boy puts a bag of sweets into the shopping cart and the father puts the bag back onto the shelf. This back and forth happens several times until the boy responds with every parent’s nightmare, a tantrum in a public area.  

    

     For the first 35 seconds of the 40 seconds commercial, the viewer still has no idea what product is being advertised. Finally after the store is littered with products flung off the shelf by the boy, the camera zooms in on the father’s humiliated faces and two words appear, “Use Condoms.” The commercial capitalizes on the juxtaposition of a serious situation and comedic relief. 

     Everyone is able to relate to this situation even if they are not a parent, because everyone has either been in a situation where have witnessed an out of control child or even been the child throwing the tantrum. The pathos in this commercial emerges in the form of annoyance towards the child, sympathy for the father, and finally a small chuckle when the two words fade into picture.

Why Videos Go Viral

Kevin Alloca, the trend manager of YouTube, has observed reasons behind the peculiar nature of viral videos. He has found three key trends he has found among certain videos that go viral that are not present in those that fall flat. The three are: tastemakers, communities of participation, and unexpectedness.

The first, "tastemakers," suggests that a person of influence or someone with a large following mentions the video at some point. For example, when Jimmy Kimmel mentioned the now famous "Double Rainbow" video in a tweet, the video's views increased dramatically, and Kimmel later featured the star on his talk show.

The second trend seen among viral videos takes a more community approach. Once the original video gains a following, the viewers often create spin-offs of the video, which creates somewhat of an "inside joke" between previously unrelated viewers. The Nyan Cat, which was spun-off to reflect several different cultures and moods, and Rebecca Black's "Friday" music video, which was reiterated in several response videos when viewers created songs for every other day of the week, are two examples Alloca explains in his TED Talk.

Unexpectedness, the third trend, is perhaps the
sole reason we found the video interesting to begin with. If not for an element of surprise, why would Jimmy Kimmel want to tweet about it? Why would we create our own iteration of a video displaying someone drinking a glass of water with their caesar salad? The surprise makes us want to share, and that is where it begins.

KONY 2012

Katy Schaffer

If you looked at Facebook, Twitter, or YouTube on March 6, you know who Joseph Kony is.

The nonprofit organization Invisible Children posted a video called KONY 2012 about Ugandan war criminal Joseph Kony, who has abducted tens of thousands of children over the past 30 years to become soldiers in the rebel group Lord's Resistance Army. The video went viral in less than a day, spreading across the vast Internet world. It capitalizes on the power of social media by urging viewers to keep sharing the video, hoping to make Kony famous and bring his crimes to justice by year's end.

The video relies heavily on the use of pathos to make its emotional claim that Kony's terrible crimes should be stopped by Internet-users-turned-activists. It inspires emotional responses of outrage, compassion, anger, and even fear from its audiences as they watch the horrors that face Kony's child soldiers. The Daily What calls it "emotional blackmail." The video also relies on ethos. Throughout the video, celebrity speakers, such as George Clooney, add credibility to the campaign's goal of stopping Kony.

However, all is not as it seems. KONY 2012 did garner millions of supporters as it went viral, but the nonprofit behind the video is not exactly using donors' money wisely. According to The Daily What, Invisible Children has been criticized by the Better Business Bureau for failing to make its financial records public, which is what nonprofits should do, and only 31% of donations go to actually helping people.

We'll just have to wait till the end of 2012 to see if the KONY 2012 campaign reaches its goal of ridding the world of its "worst" war criminal.

If Britney can, so can you

With midterms upon us and Spring Break looming I found this image to be a comforting, yet humorous beacon of hope for all of us college students. Britney Spears claim to infamy skyrocketed after her 2007 meltdown, which constituted her to shave her head and then attack paparazzi with an umbrella. Although a mental breakdown is no laughing matter, we can always leave it to the Internet to turn a tragedy into a viral motivational poster for the masses. Hey, if Britney can, so can you! -Michelle Sereno

Seriously?: Top 1% Problems

http://www.dailymail.co.uk/news/article-2108477/Outrageous-quotes-Wall-Street-bankers-struggling-350-000-year.html

"'I have to do my dishes by hand': Outrageous quotes of Wall Street bankers struggling to get by on $350,000 a year"

This is the headline of a recent article outlining the causes and immediate effects of high-end bankers having their bonuses cut, and having to depend on their $350,000 salaries to provide.  I chose this because I felt it was a more real world example of my meme project, "First World Problems."

Not only does this look terrible from a third world perspective, but even the "average Joe" living in a first world country, enjoying many of the luxuries that we have here, rolls his eyes at this.  Fact of the matter is that the "First World Problems" memes are tame enough to poke fun at superficial inconveniences in life, such as needing to turn off the light, but you're too comfortable lying in bed, or you used your last skip on Pandora, and the next song is even worse than the one before.  But this makes these so-called complaints sound joyful, as these bankers seem to have some misaligned priorities.  It makes the everyday person wonder, “Where has the common sense gone?”

It will be interesting to see how much more notoriety these individuals receive as a repercussion for these bold statements.  Also, it makes me wonder how long it will be until another instance like this one comes up; maybe people will learn a lesson from this.

Austin Woodruff