PC? What?

   We've all seen them before, the classic paradigm of "who's better?" featuring Apple's Mac and the long established PC, presumably Microsoft.  So who is truly better, Macs or PCs?  

    Rhetorically speaking, the ideas presented are of huge contrasts.  On one end, there's the PC.  PCs are presented as plain, drab, unexciting.  The ad also argues that PCs are prone to viruses, crashing, and lacking any performance near as good as as Apple's Mac computers.  On the opposite side of the spectrum, there's Apple's Mac computer.  Macs are stated to be reliable, creative, and more powerful in computing terms than what PCs can do in capabilities.  

   Both created here in America, Apple hails from Silicon Valley while Microsoft reigns from Washington state.  Both companies started in the mid-1970's to young upstarts who had a passion for programming.  The Get a Mac campaign originated in 2006 and ran through 2010, as Apple's primary marketer for its electronics and services.  The ads are comedic and lighthearted, promoting Apple and Macs as cool, hip, trendy and laid-back while PCs are old-school, boring, and prone to constant failures of multiple ends.  

   If one were to look at college campuses in the early to mid-2000's, anyone who had a laptop or desktop computer more than likely would have been using a PC of some nature.  But now, Apple surrounds us.  Walk into a lecture hall, and well more than half of the students with computers open more then likely have a glowing apple on the back of their screen.  But why is this?

   Just as promised, Apple delivers.  The advertisement addresses how Macs are reliable, sturdy, stylish and powerful, capable of doing far more in better time and efficiency than PCs.  And like with its performance, Apple not only sells a powerful computer, it also sells an image.  Apple and Mac users alike agree on the fact that the Apple brand is as much the image of technological supremacy as it is in real life tests.  The simple Get a Mac ads explore that idea in a lighthearted display.

   Depicted in the shorts are two people, sometimes more depending on which particular clip is being played.  Justin Long plays the Mac, being young and easily recognizable as someone "cool" by today's standards; the PC is portrayed by John Hodgman, dressed in a suit, acting in a manner always trying to one-up the Mac, never succeeding.  Today's youth can identify with Long and his symbolism as a Mac; he's young, he's popular, and he speaks and acts in a way that today's young adults relate to.  The struggle for the PC to out-do the Mac always results in a Mac victory based off the sheer futility of even trying to compare the two.  The ads all follow the same pattern: "Hello I'm a Mac."  "And I'm a PC."  People recognize that phrase, the images associated with it, and the rhetoric of the situation further implicates itself in the viewers mind, falling back on more rhetoric.  Like each advertisement concludes, which side wins?  The old, worn out PCs?  Or the state-of-the-art, trendy, and successful Macs?

   You be the judge.

or

Video courtesy of Youtube at http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=Afa9C98gZ7w

Images from: http://media.techeblog.com/images/getamac_apple.jpg, http://thepoliticalcarnival.net/wp-content/uploads/2011/08/question-mark1.jpg, http://www.toxel.com/wp-content/uploads/2011/08/msticker06.jpg, http://www.myhomesimulator.com/images/pc-logo.jpg, http://www.stockdiscussion.net/wp-content/uploads/2011/05/Apple-Logo1.jpg

Comics and Cartoons

   It's funny how fast attitudes can change.  What exactly is seen here?  The comic shows just how quickly the situation went from something light-hearted and comical to a very serious and grave moment.  The characters go from cheering on a friend funneling a beer to cheering on a doctor to pump the alcohol from him to save him from alcohol poisoning.  Sounds like a pretty drastic change of heart.

   So where exactly did this comic come from, and who created it?  It's from here in the States, ca. 2010’s, and is a webcomic.  The article was published as a comedic take on what the realities of partying can be; the comic itself is neither conservative or liberal, just a deriving take on a situation.  It aims for a laugh at a very real event that can be all too serious.

   This comic was created courtesy of Kris Wilson, a cartoonist for a popular series of comics called Cyanide and Happiness.  Kris, of the webpage Explosm, is known for him outlandish and edgy cartoons.  He is one of four members of Explosm which produce Cyanide and Happiness, that put out daily webcomics.  It is presumed Kris lives in Washington state, although he has not disclosed his location specifically; he publishes online anonymously exclusively though Explosm, using this avatar:

 

   The cartoon itself addresses the issue of overconsumption of alcohol, how partying can be fun at the time but have disastrous outcomes.  Irony is involved greatly, because the characters go from cheering on their friend to drink to cheering on the doctor to save the friend.  All in all, the cartoon doesn’t really take a stand, but it does show the hazards of drinking too much. 

   Design-wise, the cartoon is a two-frame piece.  The conflict evolves from one frame to the next, being only two.  This can be summed up to be similar to a cause-effect sense. While the cartoon is not visually exclusive, it draws heavily on the imagery.  Word and images are both used here.  The words are a commentary on what typically happens during the first picture, while the second is an ironic play on words on the effect of the first frame. 

   So what exactly is Kris showing in the comic?  The artist uses the images of a beer funnel, commonly found at parties, then a stomach pump in the next one, for comedic affect.  The drawings are purposely unrealistically cartoonish.  It is primarily a human stereotype done simply on something like the program Paint.  The artist does not draw on past or present ideas, he simply uses a modern event found at today’s parties.  This mirror's the tone of most Cyanide and Happiness comics, keeping the cartoon is comedic in style.  The word play of “chug chug chug!” turned “pump pump pump!” is rhetorical in the fact that it changes its tone very quickly, and then is left simply at that.  This impacts the readers on how fast attitudes can change when something bad happens. 

   The cartoon itself only shows three simple things: people, objects, and two small scenes, all done at a bare minimal of style and imagery.  The people in the cartoon are only slightly based on human analogues, of middle-class Caucasian male partier-goers and a doctor.  While not real people, the images of the men is symbolic enough to represent what real people can do in those situations.  In short, even though the people shown are not real, what they are doing is something that happens often enough to be easily recognizable.  This happens in a rhetorical way because the image of a beer funnel is commonly associated with alcohol, and for those who have experience in alcohol over-consumption, the stomach pumping is also familiar.  For the party culture, this isn't a totally alien thing.  All in all, Kris' comic is a simple one-two punch of a joke, showing the cause and effect of drinking and how quickly people's attitudes change.

Found at http://www.explosm.net/comics/2507/

Rhetoric in Everyday Life

Walk outside; what do you see?  More than likely, in some manner, there's an example of rhetoric.  A poster, a flyer, a billboard, an advertisement.  Bright images with big fonts.  All of these examples utilize the same strategy: appealing to the senses to convey a message.  On campus, such examples include things like the FCA posters and Greek Life flyers seen everywhere.
But what exactly are they trying to say?  With rhetorical analysis, we can break down these things to their core components and discover just what the true message is.

The Greek Life flyer, for example, depicts a picture of two people smiling and having a good time.  Fraternity and brotherhood, as well as sororities and sisterhood, is emphasized by the ideal of unity from a common bond.  The design of the flyer itself utilizes a modern, flashy yet simple structure that catches the eye.

But just how much rhetoric is seen by the average student as they traipse through their daily life?  Passing through the student Unions, they'd see bulletin boards with messages designed to catch their attention, or even symbols and logos on everything from clothes to computers and school equipment.  The message is nailed into the student's mind, of ideals and ideas trying to be handed to them, ever constantly.  The vending machines try and catch the eye (and appetite).    The movie theater tries to sell tickets for its latest screenings.  Even the very classes that students attend us rhetoric to catch the student's eye as they learn and retain knowledge.

Rhetoric surrounds us, every moment of every day, trying to persuade us, the student body and all others.  It's an effective medium, because it is so heavily used in every medium possible.  Whether it goes realized or not, rhetoric is one of the most base forms of commuting information and ideas.