Response Blog with The Onion

While looking around online, I found a video by the Onion (http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=PYQhvW-tjNM) about a fake new video games entitled Close Range. The purpose of this game is solely to shoot people point blank in the face with a shotgun. Because of the subject of the video being videogames, therefore technology, i felt it relates to our course theme.

The video is basically a satire of the videogame industry as a whole. It starts with the reporter introducing the game, explaining that the game is just shooting people in the face with a shotgun. Many people are interviewed, but they are all actors playing satirical characters. One is a videogame reviewer who says, "Just as literature and film transports you into a new world, Close Range transports into a world where you shoot people's faces off." They also report that people purchase the game because of it's "well-developed characters and storyline".

Using a sarcastic tone, they are scrutinizing the videogames makers, players, and critics all at the same time. The Onion is trying to make videogames look nothing more than a medium for violence, lacking any other real substance. When they say things like people enjoy the game's well-developed plot and storyline, ther are obviously being sarcastic because the game holds no plot or characters, it's just shooting people in the face. Their opinion is that while games hold plots and characters, the real appeal to videogamers is violence and gore. This is further shown through their satire of the videogame critic, who makes a comparison to videogames and other medias such as literature and film, saying all three transport you to different worlds, but that videogames, "let you shoot people in the face." This goes back to the violence theme, and shows the writers of this video don't believe that videogames should be in the same category as other artistic mediums because of their gratuitous violence.

I don't agree with the opinions of the authors because I have the reverse opinions about all their stances on videogames. The Onion believes they have no plot substance and are simply an outlet for violence, and I beg to differ. It is very easy to blame violent kids and other social issues on videogames, and I really don't believe there is a cause and effect relationship between videogames and society's ills. I rarely play videogames and currently don't own any, but I do believe they can be alot of fun and that they can be deeper than people give them credit for.

Hulu Commercial

During the Super Bowl, Hulu broadcasted a commercial with Alec Baldwin advertising its' product, a website that let's you watch popular TV shows for free. Alec says that this website is actually a means to soften the human population's brains in order for aliens to be able to eat them. Using satire and other rhetorical devices, they were able to create a funny and eye catching commercial.

One of the main repetitions that the writers used in the ad was constantly asserting TV's power to soften you're brain. This is an interesting repetition because it implies that it's target audience (mainly people between the ages of 15-30) is losing it's intellectual ability through watching television shows, something that will be furthered by going to the website. This is a very satirical and humorous take on the effects of television, and introduces this relatively new product to a large scale audience in a causal way. Humor and satire make the ad more effective, and I would say the ad is effective because I have personally been to the website multiple times since seeing it.

It was interesting having to apply rhetorical strategies to a medium other than text, but for the most part it wasn't much different. It was easy to notice the main ideas and rhetorical strategies of the piece and properly analyze them.

My Fridge/Cupboard

As I look through my fridge and cabinet, I can think of ways that these things represent different aspects of my personality. Starting off with my fridge, all I have is about 5 energy drinks, a sprite bottle, and doggy bag of some food my roommate got. The energy drinks are a good start because it shows my addiction to caffeine. I stay up late most nights either hanging out with my friends or doing homework, so i go through a ton of soda and energy drinks most days to keep me up during the day. The doggy bag represents me being a pretty easygoing guy because my roommate left it there before break so it's nasty now, but I'm not mad about our fridge smelling bad because he just forgot, it's not a big deal.


When I open up my cabinet, I have 45 grocery swipes worth of groceries. This is because on the last day of finals last quarter I still had all these swipes left so my roommate and I went to Marketplace and managed to burn all of them. This shows I'm a procrastinator because I pushed off using these swipes by going to other places to eat, and had to grab all these groceries last minute. Because almost all this food is junk food, it shows that I kind of eat what I want whenever and don't really care about how bad it is for me. I guess this could translate into that I try not to care about what people think of me, I just let myself be as I am and I don't change who I am for other people.

Reflection on Time Magazine Article

I thought that the article in Time Magazine about the Informatuion age was quite interesting, because it changed the way I look at the technological adavances of the last 10 years. Thinking of these new tools as means of changing the way we view and interact with the people around us, as well the world as a whole was a very interesting topic. Today's discussion made me think of these innovations in a new way and realize that they have a much bigger impact on the world than I had orginally thought.