TOW #14 Justine Sacco Says She “Really Suffered” After Tweeting AIDS Joke

This article is about a woman named Justine Sacco who was publicly shamed last year through Twitter. She tweeted a joke making fun of AIDS and it blew up on twitter with people shaming her for the joke with the hashtag #HasJustineLanded. The tweet was, "Going to Africa. Hope I don't get AIDS. Just kidding. I'm white!" Which was seen as very offensive by many people in the twitter community. Justine Sacco was a public relations executive but lost her job because of the tweet and hasn't made progress in her career. She is in the news again because it is the first time she is speaking out about in in a new book called So You've Been Publicly Shamed, a book about people who have been famous shamees, shamers, and bystanders who have been affected. I was especially intrested in this because the man who wrote this book is Jon Ronson, who also wrote the book I am reading for my IRB right now. This is also interesting because after people have been "publicly shamed" on twitter, or tumblr, or facebook, you don't generally hear about them and what happened to them and even if you do there's no sympathy for the woman who is making fun of AIDS. There's no forgiveness and I think that's what the book is really going to be about, forgiving these people who yes made mistakes but have learned from them and are trying to rebuild their lives. The book talks a lot about how the internet created this fake persona of Justine Sacco that was a racist, loud, clearly evil woman and that was not the true Justine Sacco. It was interesting to see how this one tweet destroyed a woman's life and if she had just thought about this crass and inappropriate joke a little longer she would still be a successful executive. 

TOW #13 Can The Next Generation Of Morticians Breathe Life Into The Death Industry? by Katie Heaney

Article Here

Can The Next Generation Of Morticians Breathe Life Into The Death Industry? by Katie Heaney is the article I read for my thirteenth TOW. This article is about the lives of morticians students, and studying to become a mortician. It also tackles larger issues that realte not only to morticians, but to everyone, topics like life and death, how the dead should be treated, who should deal with the dead, and other big ideas with the morbid thoughts that come along with interview and stepping in the lives of young students choosing the life of death. The author, Katie Heaney, asks at the beginning, "The young, close-knit, predominantly female students in SUNY Canton’s mortuary school are fascinated with our most difficult, yet unavoidable, subject. But when it comes to changing attitudes about death and grieving, are educational programs like the one they’re in part of the problem?" Throughout the piece, Heaney gives fascinating commentary on the lives of these students and why they picked their area of study, but also questions their lives, questions the things they are doing and if they make sense. For example, she questions their air of superiority because they think they are the only ones that can deal with death when in fact, they aren't special they're just better equipped. One of the students tells the story of after a close friend died, everyone in her hometown came to her for help because she was the death expert but she had no idea how to help them, or help herself in her own grieving process because how to help the living isn't taught in mortiary school. The author challenges the belief that in mortuary school, all they should be taught is how to embalm. She believes they should be able to cremate, bury, other forms of honoring the dead, and bein gthere for the emotional support of loved ones. This was very effective for this piece because the audience were questioning youth and she is one of her audience, the questioning youth that find that there is something wrong with the world and want to change it.

TOW #12 Behind The Scenes Of The Cutest Cooking Show On Television by Emily Fleischaker

Behind The Scenes Of The Cutest Cooking Show On Television by Emily Fleischaker
This article is about the beloved show Master Chef Junior. This show is a lot like the adult version, but of course it stars little kids as the culinary masters. This article goes in depth in the show, showing all the backstage workings and how these kids really cook so well. This article is unabashingly honest, common for Buzzfeed and it does not embellish anything. For example, the author is writing about this show where the main man is Gordon Ramsay, but she does not put him on a pedestal. Fleischaker wonders why people still work for Ramsay in, "in the face of his insulting tirades and long list of scandals." And then she links the readers to this long list of scandals. Fleischaker also makes use of rhetoric questions like when she ask, "And who wants to watch kids being mean to one another or judges hurting their feelings?" or, "Are these kids as good as they seem? And if not, would that make the show any less fun?" These questions serve to show what the piece will serve about the show. She answers them all throughout the piece dealing with them in a good way. She also gives a lot of background of Master Chef, to make sure she is writing not just for people who watch the show, but also for people who are just curious about the inner workings of reality tv competition shows like Master Chef. "The adult version is based on a BBC show that initially ran from 1990 to 2001, and the brand was exported globally. More than 40 countries have adapted the show — there’s a Master Chef Italia, Master Chef Pakistan, Master Chef China, and more. The kid spin-off was first introduced in 1994 in the U.K. and has been produced in 15 different countries." Overall, Fleischaker effectively wrote an in depth piece about Master Chef and showed the world a little something they didn't know.

TOW #11 (IRB) The Psychopath Test Pt. 1

The first half of The Psychopath Test: A Journey Through the Madness Industry, by Jon Ronson, was extremely fascinating, but also definitely not what I excepted. First of all, Jon Ronson has a distinctly British style of writing that just seems more winding and roundabout than an American counter part might have been. He has many anecdotes in this book, in which he weaves into one massive story concerning every single part of madness and the many layers of the psychopathy world. He starts of with an admittedly confusing but intriguing mystery about identical boxes filled with interesting objects sent to scientists all around the world for them to supposedly figure out. Many a moons are spent pouring over this box and its mysteries by the scientists but Jon Ronson travels around the globe just to find out that it was a random act by a psychopath. The very psychopath that would send him deep into the world of psychopathy. A rhetorical device Roson uses consistently is compare and contrast. He meets and studies many different people that are psychopaths and he compare and contrasts all of them to see what they have in common, what is different, all to define psychopathy. Another rhetorical device Ronson uses well is definition. Throughout the entire book he is building a definition of a psychopath and whenever he seems to have a definite definition, he learns something new and has to revise it. These rhetorical device make Ronson writing very effective because it seems like a story but it is also informative. The Psychopath Test is a study into psychopathy, but it is strung together using Ronson's stories and experiences. The audience is given an intimate look into a person who fears he is succumbing to a whole other type of madness, so he studies psychopaths to reassure himself he can't be worse than them. This was very effective and a good read.

TOW #10 Smoking Kills (Visual)

This advertisement is against smoking, featuring a young girl blowing out of a bubble baton, but instead bubbles coming out, smoke does. This advertisement caters mostly to pathos because of the sheer age of the little girl. Here's this girl, barely ten years old and she's already being exposed to harmful smoking chemicals that could harm her greatly. The audience of this advertisement is clearly people who smoke, but also people who have kids and smoke. This shows that secondhand smoke is very dangerous too and in most cases, a parent would want to protect their child greatly. The shock value of the ad is that it puts two things together that you would not expect. The deadly smoke coming out of a child's play toy is startling and in some cases, terrifying. This ad can make people realize that second hand smoke is very bad for children and can persuade parents to stop smoking in front of their children or at all. The ultimate purpose of this ad is to persuade people to stop smoking, especially if they have children. It is equally important that people without children stop smoking as well, but this ad caters to people with children. The thought that they may be harming little kids by their bad habit or addiction is a very heavy thought and just by looking at this ad, it may be able to persuade people to the path of not smoking anymore. I thought this ad was very persuasive because the amount of pathos in it is huge, and even though it does not have much ethos or logos, the emotion coming from a small child and dangerous smoke is a lot. The context of this is of course, the smoking epidemic that has swept the nation and claimed many lives. In conclusion, I believe this was an effective ad that used rhetorical devices well. 

TOW #9 The Hunter, The Hoaxer, And The Battle Over Bigfoot by Tim Stelloh

The Hunter, The Hoaxer, And The Battle Over Bigfoot by Tim Stelloh is an in depth informative article comparing and contrasting two very different sides of the Bigfoot myth. On one side are the never ending hoaxers, profiting from an urban legend by essentially lying for a living. On the other side is the serious scientists that truly believe Bigfoot exists and have put their very careers on the line trying to prove it to the world. Tim Stelloh, an accomplished journalist, traveled with each side trying to figure out why they do the things they do, whether the motivation is money or knowledge. Bigfoot is something people have debated for years and many people actually do believe in this colossal human-like creature, so this article reaches out to anyone the least bit curious about Bigfoot. The audience would be people that aren't in this world of searching for Bigfoot because it offers an in depth look into it. Stelloh's purpose was to show the different sides of the Bigfoot hunt and he did that extremely effectively by using compare and contrast. First he painted a portrait of a man that makes his living off of lying to people that he has killed a Bigfoot., then he showed a man who was a respected scientist and spends a lot of money and time in the hope that Bigfoot is real. Contrasting these two clearly showed how some people in the Bigfoot game just want money, but others are passionate for knowledge about this creature they believe exists. However, Stelloch also compared the two men, showing how their true purpose was really the same, both, " seeking to advance, in their own peculiar way, the mystery of Sasquatch." This showed that this subculture may be deeply divided between true scientists and lowly hoaxers but they're all push a similar agenda. Stelloch's purpose was to inform about the world of Bigfoot hunters and he did that very well using compare and contrast.

IRB Intro Post #2

I chose "The Psychopath Test: A Journey Throughout the Madness Industry" by Jon Ronson for my second IRB book. This book is about psychopathy, how it affects individuals and how its definition fits many varied people. This book is well renowned, especially in England, and it caught my interest because of the intriguing title.