You guessed it... A THON Reflection Post

Due to the class speeches this week, I decided to write a personal blog post about something related to a rhetoric technique. Speakers employ pathos to draw emotional responses from their audience. Mr. Rupp, a speaker during Family Hour at THON 2011, crafted a beautiful speech that left the 13,000 spectators in the BJC speechless and in tears. His speech is an excellent example of pathos.

Mr. Rupp may have spoken for ten minutes, or fifty minutes. I was too entranced by his words to notice any passing of time. His daughter, Felicia, lost the battle against cancer over 10 years ago. Yet he still returns to THON with his family because Felicia cherished THON weekend. His return to THON 2011 was accompanied by a speech that had a major impact on my life perspective.

He began his speech with stories about his daughter's friendship with another cancer patient. The story took me back to memories of my own childhood, evoking laughter over ridiculous memories of sleeping in my dog's crate with my own best friend of 13 years. Mr. Rupp's explanation of Felicia’s friendship with another cancer patient reminded me of my own childhood friendships, and how lucky I am to still hold these friendships close to my heart. Felicia's friend lost the battle to cancer when she was 8 years old. Mr. Rupp's daughter battled pediatric Cancer while combating the grief of losing her best friend.

I think you can see how pathos applies to this aspect of Mr. Rupp's speech. This intricate story of friendship and loss paralleled every single spectator of the BJC's own childhood friendships. The emotional appeal was overwhelming and incredibly effective. I stood in the stands next to my best friends at THON (my Rules & Regulations committee); our arms wrapped around each other, tears sliding silently down our cheeks. Mr. Rupp's entire speech was rich with elements of pathos, but especially the story about his daughter's childhood best friend.

His speech ended with a statement that reached every individual listening; i was so raw and eye opening that it undoubtedly inspired all of us. "I want you to dance, I want you to THON, and I want you to do this because I don’t want you to ever have your child die in your arms.” These words reminded me of why I THON. Sure, my feet ached and my headache was near unbearable. However, my minor pains were nothing in comparison to the suffering faced by Mr. Rupp.He lost his own daughter, but still finds the strength to empower thousands with his story.

I consider myself lucky to have heard Mr. Rupp's speech during Family Hour. I believe that Mr. Rupp's words will stick with me for the rest of my life. His anecdotes and advice enriched the elements of pathos in his speech. Mr. Rupp’s words motivated me to think through every challenge I face in my day to day life and put the challenge into a greater perspective. Mr. Rupp’s daughter died in his own arms. My own personal battles are minuscule compared to this. FTK!

Thank you for this perspective, Mr. Rupp.

Save the Children

The textbook defines enargeia as the "figure in which rhetors picture events so vividly that they seem actually to be taking place before the audience." An online textbook defines it as "a rhetor's goal of arousing the passions within the audience to move them to act". This online textbook also references the Save the Children campaign and its use of enargeia.

Save the Children is a charity dedicated to enabling children caught in political turmoil and establishing long term recovery programs. I'm not sure how appropriate it is to parallel images and enargeia, but I will try to do so anyway. I found dozens of images from the Save the Children campaign that shook me. Here are some of them:

I believe that these images capture enargeia. They are packed with raw emotion, heartbreak, and fear. They are terrifying. These pictures absolutely arouse passion. They evoke incredible emotions and paint vivid pictures (literally) to the audience of turmoil. These photographs and the Save the Children campaign exercise the use of enargeia to bring to light tragic realities in the minds of a person.

In class this week, we focused a lot on advertisements of companies trying to convince a consumer to buy their product. I think there is an opportunity for deeper analysis of advertisements from charities. Save the Children is one of countless examples of these charities. This organization publishes photos in magazine ads and creates commercials to raise awareness. Save the Children uses enargeia to present striking photographs of children in need. This campaign is successful in a way that is different from the ads we analyzed in class. Becoming aware of the importance of Save the Children will motivate an audience to give to a cause; while promoting a product in an advertisement will simply motivate an audience to buy a product.

Photo sources: Save the Children

Coke vs. Pepsi

The United States soft drink obsession is dominated by Coke and Pepsi products. There is no doubt that these two companies are geniuses in marketing. Coke and Pepsi battle it out in taste tests and consumer satisfaction, seemingly trying to persuade their buyers about the better product. However, the ingenuity of these companies does not lay in their taste tests or consumer satisfaction. It relies in their polarization of the product. Consider this: Can you name any other soft drink company? Sure, grocery stores offer house brands. However, Coke and Pepsi not only dominate the world of soft drinks, they insinuate that it is either Coke or Pepsi- and nothing else.
If our choice is solely between Coke and Pepsi, then there should be a clear winner. Is it Coke? Or is it Pepsi? It's debatable. Both companies are highly profitable. Oddly enough, both companies have survived significant product failures...
In the late 1980's Coke launched a product called "New Coke" that was a complete marketing failure. New Coke should have been enough of a failure to let Pepsi grasp the reins of success, but it wasn't. Pepsi released Crystal Pepsi shortly after the New Coke fiasco. It failed miserably as well. Coke and Pepsi failed to properly analyze their audience, therefore failing to properly establish ethos.
I decided to take a closer look at the ethos behind New Coke and Crystal Pepsi. Coke hired Bill Cosby, the comedian of the decade, to endorse the product. Here is one of his commercials:

 Coke succeeded in hiring Bill Crosby. He asserts himself as an expert on Coca-cola. Bill Cosby was an excellent choice to represent the product.
In contrast, Pepsi used another facet of ethos. In one commercial, they interview everyday people about their reactions to Crystal Pepsi. These testimonials appeal to credibility of the product. Here is the commercial:



The success of these new products was minimal. Both New Coke and Crystal Pepsi had short lives on the shelves across America. Both companies failed to analyze their buying audience, yet succeeded in utilizing expertise and credibility in their ads. This is a great example of the complexity of ethos because we can succeed but ultimately fail, just like New Coke and Crystal Pepsi.
...Despite these failures, Coke and Pepsi remain the "super powers" of the soft drink world. What are your thoughts?

Obama & Energy Innovation

Barack Obama. Penn State. TODAY. I'm still pretty shocked that I had the opportunity to be there.

Liz, Michael, Sandra

Through a service, leadership, and social justice organization, I volunteered at the event. The volunteers were led by a White House staff member with a stunning Southern charm named Michael. Right off the bat, I noticed Michael's, what I call, "political attitude." When asked questions, Michael rarely gave clear answers. Time frames were indefinite. "I can neither confirm nor deny" was often stated. Although Michael is just a minor White House staff member, he still embodies the political attitude.

The "political attitude" is the use of the indefinite and wishy-washy. Politicians are geniuses at manipulating their language to dance around a point. Politicians make big promises with incomplete plans. Politicians assert ideologies but don't work to establish them in society. Michael, the White House official, embodied the political attitude on a minor level. President Barack Obama, however, is a trained professional.

Obama pleaded with the audience at Rec Hall to win the future. He asked that we channel our passion into the sciences, paralleling our passion for football. Obama called for the "better building initiative" to reduce the 40% of energy used to power homes and buildings in the breakdown of US energy consumption. He discussed an energy hub in Philadelphia that Penn State is partnered with to develop advanced technology.

I was definitely inspired by Obama. However, in class, we are encouraged to use precision and clarity in our language. We must present our ideas in an organized fashion to convey the strongest message. After today, I’m certain that politicians rely on a different rhetorical method. I believe politicians are their own sect of rhetors. Politicians are rhetors that use the "political attitude" to win over their voters.

The “political attitude” is without a doubt inspiring. However, I think that politicians are effective rhetors only against other politicians. We learn a discipline of rhetoric that demands precision and clarity, while politicians stray from that path, asserting ideologies and making big promises.

Michael, the volunteer supervisor, is already employing the “political attitude”. President Barack Obama is an expert at it. This morning, I not only volunteered my time to put on the President's Speech, I volunteered my time to learn a clear distinction among rhetors like me, and rhetors like politicians.