E-Portfolio

Jack Small's Online Portfolio

Thank you for teaching me so much about one of the most important but least focused on topics in our society, Ben!

The Rhetoric of Ads

For some reason, I've been thinking a lot about advertisements lately. Maybe it's thinking back to the beginning of the semester, when we focused on them a lot. They are incredibly interesting rhetorically.

First, the point of every ad is to get more people to buy this particular product. We have all seen so very many ads by the time we have any income to dispose of on that product, so the creators of these ads have to become very creative to get our attention. There are several ways to go about this, and I'll talk about the onw I find most interesting.

The one I find most interesting are what I think of as anti-ads. They know most people tune ads out, and don't try to hide the fact that they are an ad. They basically yell right out at you, "We know that you know we're only trying to sell this. And that's fine." These remind me of anti-jokes in a way. An anti-joke takes a traditional joke opening, but makes the punchline deliberately unfunny or extremely weird. The confusion following from the unexpected unfunniness makes the anti-joke funny. It's really weird, but good ones usually are funny. Anti-ads are essentially trying to do the same thing. They are confronting that people are expecting their "punchline," or pitch to buy their product, and hoping this makes the consumer want to buy their product. Usually breaking the third wall does this. If done well, I think this is so extremely effective. These anti-ads get us to pay attention to them.

The most recent example of this I can think of is the Dr. Pepper 10 commercials. They immediately confront the fact that they are displaying an ad for a soda right away, and even tell everyone who their consumer base is: men. I think there is some extremely interesting rhetoric behind this. Are they trying to tempt women into buying their product by saying they aren't allowed to have it? Or are they trying to have men feel part of a fraternal Dr. Pepper organization? Probably both, or whatever gives them the most sales. Regardless, I think the commercials are pretty funny.

The Rhetoric of Death

I already wrote about grief and the potential rhetoric behind it. I thought I'd talk about the cause of grief: death.

Now death is something we all probably think about relatively often. It's something that we must all inevitably face and a lot of people are very uncomfortable talking about it. The culmination of life and the ultimate unknown. I think people are scared more than anything of that fact. Because, no matter what faith you may hold, no one really knows what is going to happen when they die.

I am a Episcopal, but I don't really like to associate myself with religion. I do believe in God and I think I believe in some sort of afterlife. When I ask myself why I think there is an afterlife, I always come to the same conclusion: I can't imagine there being anything else. By that I mean, I can't even fathom there being nothing. I understand that there was tons of nothing before I ever lived, but that doesn't help me to understand the absolute nothingness that may await all of us after our time on Earth is done.

What does this exactly say about me and my beliefs? Well, for one, it's kind of selfish and self-centered. The Earth doesn't revolve around me, which I so humbly know and understand, so why would an afterlife exist simply because I can't understand there being anything else? It doesn't make sense. But it's what I believe regardless.

The other reason I believe in an afterlife is also selfish. I want there to be some kind of reward for all the people that have lived good lives, namely my loved ones. And, as horrible as this sounds when I write it and really think about it, I think those that led bad lives should be punished in some way. What this all boils down to is that I am afraid that the accomplishments and choices we make in this life will count for nothing. This partially stems from my reading of Nietzsche in my Philosophy class, as he says this is the exact reason for the initial formation of religion.

With all that said, and how ridiculous it may be when I think about it, I still believe in an omnipresent, God-like figure that in some sense created the universe. And I believe that our lives do count for something, that something will happen when we die, and that darkness alone does not wait for us. Is it selfish and childish? Probably. I just can't imagine there being anything else though.

What's in a Name?

This week I want to examine something that I have always thought about: the rhetoric of names. A name is one of the most defining characteristics of our beings. Many of us are given common, unoriginal names while a select few are bestowed with completely unique names (such as Jermajesty, the unfortunately named son of Jermaine Jackson). The worst part is, we have no say of our names, and are virtually brainwashed into liking them. We are basically trained to answer to them, and after hearing it so many times and becoming pretty attached to it, we are almost forced to accept it. Yes, we can go through the process of changing our names, but that is pretty uncommon and seems like a lot of work. Plus, only people that want to be named Spiderman actually go and get their names changed.

I hope to be half the man he is. fanpop.com

I was born with the name Jack. It was after my grandfather, whose real name is John, but everyone calls him Jack (it gets a little confusing when we're in the same room during the holidays). My mom always says she made naming kids Jack popular, because I was born a couple of years before a huge boom of little boys being named Jack.

What I've always noticed is how many television or movie characters are named Jack. When you look for it, you really find it quite a lot. For example, just to name a few, there's: Jack Bauer, from 24; Jack Shephard from Lost; Jack McCoy from Law and Order; Jack Dawson from Titanic; Jack Sparrow from Pirates of the Caribbean; Jack Skellington from The Nightmare Before Christmas; and the list goes on. I have to add that Jack is much more common in American television and film compared to those from the UK and Australia, where the name is much more popular (the most popular in recent years). What about American television calls for the dominance of my name?

Something all the characters named Jack have in common is that they are all extremely strong male leads. Jack Bauer stopped countless terrorist attacks while Jack Shephard lead the survivors of Oceanic Flight 815. And Jack Dawson let himself freeze to death in the water so Rose could live after the sinking of the Titanic. Something about the name Jack seems to breed these selfless, complicated leaders. I am focusing on Jack not only because it is my name, but because of the standards I have to face while competing with these giants of the media. It really isn't fair for me.

Hahhaha, anyway, this is just something I've always noticed, because anyone is more inclined to pay attention when their name is mentioned. I couldn't find anything like a study of what names mean in the sphere of the media, so I figured I'd right about it. I'm sure there are tons of connections between the names of characters and the traits they are given.