Will it Blend?

This is an ad selling not only a Blendtec blender, but the idea of a Blendtec blender being better than an iPad, and after watching this video, I have to agree, at least from a durability standpoint. The ad takes a side, which is unusual for a product that would want to appeal to as many people as possible. It appears to favor fans of windows products.
This ad was posted on Youtube, and that's its main medium. It serves the audience very well. They expected to be entertained when killing time on Youtube, and this video provides that entertainment. The video features Tom Dickinson, blender extraordinaire, a middle-aged man in a lab coat, and some old-time big band music. It feels like a game show, and projects that environment very well.
His inflection kind of contrasts the sequence of the video, because he remains calm and jovial while smashing and grinding a very expensive coaster.

The ad, playing like a game show, builds excitement for viewers as the iPad is blended. For the first few seconds, it doesn't look like it will take, but sure enough, it grinds down to a powdery dust. The idea is to make you think the Blendtec blender can do anything, and reduce anything to a powder.
The ad utilizes the new fad of the iPad to shock the audience- they have the audacity to destroy this great new hip creation!? The shock factor increases the appeal and widens the spread of the video as it is linked over social networks and is a great way to reach a wider audience.

Cartoon analysis

This comic discusses the issue of misplaced worries and paranoia, and how we deal with situations that are much more dangerous than we perceive.

In the comic, a woman refuses to ride a plane while talking on the phone in a car that she's driving. She then sends a text message in heavy traffic, which statistics have shown is much more dangerous than riding in a plane.

The comic was posted December 2, 2010 and the most recent notable attack on an airplane at the time was the underwear bombing in 2009. It's posted from America on the internet, so anyone with the web address could access it. It is very straightforward in telling us that we have misplaced our fears.

Zach Weiner is an American cynic with seemingly liberal tendencies. He is a pure comedian that sometimes focuses on making fun of occasional illogical fallacies in common human thought trends. He also writes comedic skits archived in SMBC Theatre.


Weiner pokes fun at the fact that we are so scared of airplanes due to a very small number of incidents, when we do such dangerous things on a regular basis. Texting while driving is MUCH more likely to kill you than a relatively safe airplane. The delivery of this is very ironic, in that it has the ignorant woman refusing to do something safe while doing something incredibly dangerous.

Here, the words and images contradict each other, the second image clearly shows how much danger she's putting herself in, while she herself in the text concludes that a plane is much more dangerous. In a sense, it's showing how much the terrorism has worked. We, as a country, are now illogically afraid of some pretty safe airplanes now that terrorists have wrecked some of them.

The woman pretty much resembles the whole of the ignorant society that believes that planes are incredibly dangerous, and haven't seen the statistics behind texting while driving.

Concerning rhetoric...

Orange, Clemson University’s primary color, is very very bright. It’s no wonder all the flyers and posters hung up around the dorm hall are speckled, striped, splashed or otherwise completely strewn with the color; it catches the eye and creates a sense of school spirit with whatever organization is advertising. I only found two types of ads without flashy orange designs blinding you as you tried to walk to the elevator to get to class.

The first was the flyers for intramurals. They made up for the lack of color with BIG BOLD CAPITAL LETTERS. That definitely grabs your attention. The ads a relatively simple, shouting a certain date and time to come and see what they have to offer. And even if the BIG BOLD CAPITAL LETTERS don’t get you, the sheer volume of placement will. It seems they thought it would be more effective to use the funds they could’ve allocated to buying color ink to buy REAMS of paper, because these things are hung up every three or four feet. 

The interesting thing about these flyers is the absolute lack of rhetoric. I guess they figured a black and white picture vaguely depicting what the sport might be was enough, and anyone interested enough to look at them and note the time, would probably come.

The second advertisement not covered in that fluorescent orange is primarily green and has its and way of standing out. “Become an Eco Rep!” it advocates, with a pair of hands (some pretty good looking ones at that) holding up the world- sans oceans. It’s trying to convey the message that the world is in our hands, and becoming a Clemson Eco Rep could be a good platform to jumpstart our world saving careers (or hobbies?) and be part of a fun community.  It’s the only true piece of rhetoric I can find up here.

One interesting thing I found was that the Christian organizations “teamed up” with each other. They look as if they share a common goal of spreading the Good News, so they plopped their posters right next to each other. They considered that anyone that was Christian or interested in Christianity would look at one of the posters, and see both. That way, if one churches time wasn’t good for the student, the other poster invited them just as freely.

I also saw some awesome commercials, but I’m sure I’ll get to talk more about different rhetoric later. I don’t want to put all my brand name eggs in one basket.

it is done!

WHOO! also, test.