I was driving around for work today when I heard an advertisement on the radio that was not only one of the most horribly written plugs I've ever experienced, but also full of rhetoric.
This Saturday night, come join ALL the hottest Milwaukee minors at the new Sugar Dance Club...located (somwhere)...
It went on to publicize the events details but then here was the kicker. The ad had different teenage girls saying the following phrases as if their life and future depended on the success of this public announcement:
"You just have to be there!"
"Everyone I know is going to be go!"
"This is the coolest event to ever hit Milwaukee!"
" All my friends are going to be there, so I better go to!"
The reason this irritated me so much, beyond the whiny teenage voicing conveying rhetorical lies to their listeners, is that the creator of this message clearly understood how to play on people's logic and emotion. To someone unversed in rhetoric, this announcement may actually convince them to go to this "happening under-age dance club."
But to me, I realized that no, I don't HAVE to be there...not EVERYONE I know is goign to go---it's definitely NOT the coolest thing to hit Milwaukee, and just because one or two of my friends may go doesn't mean I have to.
I guess that the announcement just solidified the fact that rhetoric really is everywhere, and only those who are aware can really identify it. Otherwise, you probably just fall for it.
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5 comments:
Even though this technique is obvious to us, it might not be for young teenagers. The lines in the advertisements are lines kids would use on their parents to try and get their way. The lines will sound familiar to them, and they might want to go.If the club is for minors, they have limited activities to attended. This is something new, and even thought the advertising may seem corny, I think that it might be very effective for the 15-17 year old crowd.
Don't you remember saying as a child "Please mom, all my friends are going to the party" and in response your mom would say, "well if they all jumped off a bridge would you?" At that point you had no response, you wanted to say yes, but you really would not mean it, you just wanted your way, instead you would answer "no, mom, but thats different." So like those whinny girls on the ad, we too as young kids used similar phrases. Even though we are studying rhetoric as an art, and some really do feel it is an art, the basic underlining meaning of rhetoric is used by everyone no matter what the age. We learn at a young age to play on others emotions and usually as young children we chose whining or crying. So even though those are teens trying to get people to go to a club, its not much different then us as kids trying to go to our friends house or to the big party. And its seems the number rhetorical phrase is, "everyone else is going..."
This reminds me of those creepy nightime commercials with the dateline phone numbers. They are gross and i definitely don't know anyone who calls these lines. Pretty funny. And annoying.
I totally agree. I think a lot of people lose their personalities because "everyone is doing it." I also like the fact that this ad doesn't say anything about what actually will be going on at this under-age dance club. I wouldn't go to this party because I don't know what's going on there. I think this is similar to the phenomenon that happens near my hometown a lot. Not many things open up near where I'm from, so whenever there's a grand opening it seems like the entire town is there for the next two weeks to come. Example: when Olive Garden opened last year. I believe most people have been to an Olive Garden so what makes the difference in this one? Same thing with the under-age dance club. It's nothing new so why should you go? Somehow, the gullible always end up there. By the way, I still haven't gone to the Olive Garden in my hometown.
sounds like a good mix of metonymy and diazeugma was used to get people to get to this club. metonymy was used when figures of speech and phrases was substituted for other phrases that closely mean the same thing and diazeugma was used when the repetition of friends being at this place and going to this place to draw attention to the club. good tactic to some but to us, we know what the plug was attempting to do.
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