E-Portfolio

http://samanthacelio.weebly.com/

Fanatic Fans

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So everyone has his or her favorite sport teams.  You have the fans that go to games every once in a while, fans that have season tickets and never miss a game, and then you have fanatic fans where their sport team becomes part of them.  In this case, Bryan Stow encountered those extreme-type fans.  While at a Dodger-Giants game, Stow was walking back to his car in Giant’s apparel when two men decked out in Dodger apparel approached him and started beating him to the pavement because he was a Giants fan. 

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This wasn’t just a simple punch and be done with.  They punched his head until he fell and continued the beating on the ground by kicking him unconscious.  Stow was rushed to the hospital by friends.  But he didn’t just walk away with some bruising and scars.  Almost a week after the incident, he remains in a medically induced coma with brutal skull fractures and bruising to his brain.  His doctor predicts a slow and long recovery process for him.  Friends and family back home are rushing to do fundraisers and collect donations for his family to pay the medical bills.  He was never known to be an aggressive man, hence the reason why he didn’t fight back (granted it was a sneak attack when they first started punching him in the head). 

I can understand being a proud supporter of your team but going to the extremes of beating an innocent man in the parking lot is ridiculous.  It would be one thing if it were a group of drunken men arguing back and forth antagonizing each other, taunting for a fight.  But he was just walking back to his car with his children and friends and he was snuck up upon and was punched from the back of his head until he fell down and was kicked unconscious.  Its so unfair to Stow and his friends and family that now he is suffering in his coma and everyone else back home is just waiting and hoping until he wakes up all because of some stupid, drunken fanatics that just went too far to an inappropriate level.
(PS-this isn't the a fight from the article, just a baseball fight in general between rivals Yankees and Red Sox fans)

It goes to show how life can be so unexpected.  This man expected to go to a baseball game with his friends and his children to enjoy the day and it ended up as a nightmare—beaten until unconscious and fell into a coma in which he still has not awoken almost a week later.   The strain this must be putting on his wife and children must be so extreme and upsetting.  Who knew that going to a simple baseball game could end in such disaster?

A Dream Come True

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So when we were younger, we grew up watching Disney movies such as Cinderella, Beauty and the Beast, Aladdin, etc.  We always imagine having that fairytale, picture-perfect life with our prince charmings.  And for Halloween, we dressed as different princesses every year just to be able to wear the gorgeous dresses and to feel like a real princess.

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 And in every woman’s life when they are older, their favorite day to get dressed up and to feel like princesses themselves is their wedding day.  They spend months planning the place, the caterer, the flower arrangements and more importantly, dress shopping for yourself and the bridesmaids.  Well what if combining both the dreams of when you are younger and when your older could come true?  

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Designer Alfred Angelo has now created a line of Disney Princess inspired wedding gowns.  The princesses are all represented with their own dress and suggested shoes and jewelry: Cinderella, Sleeping Beauty, Ariel, Jasmine, Tiana (newer princess, not an original), Belle and Snow White.  The prices range from $599-$1199 with a large range of sizes from 0-30W.  The dresses are a bit pricey if one is on a budget but I think having a Disney princess wedding dress is the ultimate piece to that picture perfect wedding.  

She Stole My Dress! Not Anymore...

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Back in the high school world, girls are beginning the freak-outs of prom dress shopping.  At my school, junior prom was the first weekend in May and then senior prom was the last weekend in May so right now is prime prom dress shopping—maybe even a little late.   

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Although it may seem early to guys to be shopping for dresses but by the time you find the perfect one, you have to make appointments to get it altered and fitted just right.  And with most of the girls in your grade plus surrounding schools all using same tailors and what not, the appointments get booked pretty fast.  I remember for junior prom, I went very early with a group of my friends and we all bought ours the beginning of March and had the tailoring done about a week before.  But for senior prom, I started looking much later towards the end of March, but I wasn’t even able to get it all finished and altered until the Thursday before from (prom was on Saturday).  So going early really can make a difference if its going to be ready in time or not.

On AOL news this morning, I came across this article.  It’s about high school girls in Pennsylvania that formed a Facebook group where they post pictures of their already-bought prom dresses so no one can get the same one.  After endless dress try-ons and stopping in multiple stores until you find your perfect dress, the one thing that would be a complete mess on prom night is walking in and making awkward eye contact with a girl in the same dress, or the same dress in a different color.  Especially with all the money spent on the dress, the altering, the hair, nails and even tanning packages, you definitely don't want anything to go wrong.  But then it seems that all your hard work to get the dress just went out the window because you’re not the only one wearing that dress anymore.  It’s a great idea on those girls’ part and definitely would be beneficial to more girls getting ready for their upcoming proms.

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In The Arms of an Angel

As a passionate animal lover, especially dogs, when this commercial comes on I will just start to tear up and cannot watch.

This commercial is for the SPCA End Animal Cruelty campaign.  Seeing the photos and clips of the once abused dogs rescued and living in such small quarters at the pound just breaks my heart and I’m sure it does for most other viewers.  Even though the photos and video clips are very explicit, they show the truth and don’t sugar coat anything.  The music in the background with the song “Angel” just ties the whole commercial together with its very soft beat. 

While I was youtube-ing this clip, a suggested video on the side came up for “Kitten Burned Alive.”  The video was just someone’s response to a previously posted video so I decided to search into it to see what it was all about.  All the news reports and interviews were not on YouTube so I had to Google the article myself.

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This was about a girl, Cheyenne Cherry, who as a practical joke broke into her ex-roommates apartment, trashed it, and then put her young kitten in the oven to burn to death.  The reason why she claims to have fled the scene so quickly was only because she didn’t like hearing the sounds of the cat scratching to get out, for help.  This just disgusts me.  How could anyone throw a living creature into a stove and let it burn to death?  The thing that makes me most teary-eyed out of this whole sickening situation was her hearing the scratches for the little kitten to get her out and she did nothing about it.  How could someone kill a living creature, a pet somebody loved and looked after, even listening to it plea for help from the oven, just as a joke?  Cheyenne Cherry just repulses me and it sickens me that anyone could ever think to do that to a young creature just for a joke.

The Bachelor--Not So True Love

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The Bachelor is a reality show on ABC’s primetime.  This show brings in 25 women for one man to meet and they go on fantasy dates and at the end of each episode, the women will receive roses if they are asked to come back by the bachelor and if not, then they are sent home. 

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This show is awful for finding a successful relationship in my eyes.  First of all, this man is just given 25 random women.  What if he didn’t like any of them or what if there were better choices but the producers just didn’t pick them?  He is already at a disadvantage at that element.  The bachelor that is on the show now actually is a returning one back from his season a few years ago.  At the end, he is expected to propose to one and at his first shot of love, he chose neither of the two women and this basically devastated women everywhere.  In magazines and interviews, he was viewed as an awful man with commitment issues. 

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This is absolutely ridiculous.  A man is labeled as an a**hole and diagnosed with commitment issues just because he didn’t love either of the two women that he chose at the end?   This show sets expectations for the bachelor because he is expected to marry and have a beautiful life with the woman he chooses.  I think it was almost better he didn’t chose anyone.  He went against the show and it’s meaning which shocked everyone but showed that maybe you can’t find true love on reality TV.  Shows in the past, most of them end up breaking off the engagement a few months or a year after the show.  This show sets up contestants on these fantasy dates of helicopters over Hawaiian volcanoes, getting sung to by famous singers on a rooftop in New York City, etc. stuff that doesn’t really happen on first and second dates.  Who can’t help but to fall in love or think you’re falling in love with someone when you’re in such a romantic setting?

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The Bachelor is still one of my favorite shows to watch despite all of the negativity I presented towards it.  But just its morals and values just don’t add up to a successful relationship, the goal of the show.  All in all, if you are looking for true love, reality TV just is not the way to go.

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Getting Unhooked

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Smoke Free sponsors this ad.  It is promoting readers to obviously quit smoking.  The use of its visuals and statement positively comes through to the audience to quit.

The quote reads, “The average smoker needs over five thousand cigarettes a year” and “get unhooked” under it in smaller font.  It is highlighted in blue against the white background to obviously stand out to the reader.  Typing out the number five thousand instead of 5,000 makes the word longer and seems like a much bigger number than it actually is.  Spacing out the word by writing it out versus using the numbers creates an illusion for the reader and making the reality of that many cigarettes seem more intimidating and frightening, backing people away from smoking. 

“Getting unhooked” is the almost punch line of the ad and that smoking is something that once you start, you can never stop.  The vivid image of the hook going through the girl’s lip and actually seeing it come out the other side again makes for a disgusted feeling for the reader and making them want to turn away from smoking.  We’ve all seen the ads of the yellow teeth and what your lungs look like as a smoker—it’s nothing new to viewers and people still continue to smoke.  But with this new image, its something new, something different and still creates that disgusted feeling in a different way and to get people to think differently about something just because the picture is totally unrelated to the physical acts of smoking.

The ad does a great job of coming through to their audience in their intended manner and this image and thought of “getting unhooked” works well for their ad campaign. 

Pathos At Its Best

This week in class we discussed pathos, which is the appeal and emotion of the audience.  The commercial below is for the Christian Children’s Fund, now also known as the ChildFund, an organization that helps deprived children in developing countries.  The organization raises funds to give the children such as clean drinking water, nutritional programs, education programs, and vaccines and healthcare.

This commercial is a great example of ethos because it reaches through to the audience in an emotional tone.  Seeing the video footage of where the children are being raised truly will break your heart.  You will start to feel such sympathy for the children and then at the same time guilt because of all the things you take for granted that these children will never have the chance to have. 

The ChildFund uses pathos to reach out to the audience’s emotions to get you to contribute to the cause for the sake of the children.  These emotions you start to feel when watching the commercial and footage of the lives of these children are the reason why you are so pulled into the organization and making the donation.  And if you choose not to donate, a sense of guilt is hanging over your head for the rest of the day when you have such easy access to food, water and shelter, something these children do not have. 

The ChildFund’s pathos is a technique that is perfect for their ad campaigns.  Showing the audience really footage of these young children’ lifestyles really touches the hearts of the viewers and makes them want to make a donation—which ultimately is their goal.  And in this case, they succeed with their use of pathos.

Smartwater's Smart Choice

This ad featuring Jennifer Aniston is for Glaceau’s Smartwater.  Now, the company had thousands of choices as to who to do the ad but they chose Jennifer Aniston.  She’s been a famous figure since her role as Rachel on the hit shows “Friends.”  Women have looked up to her as a role model and guys, well, they saw her as someone to look at.  In 2005, her famous husband Brad Pitt left her for Angelina Jolie while they were filming their new movie, “Mr. and Mrs. Smith.”  Jennifer got much sympathy as the perfect wife who got left for the bad girl husband-stealer.  Because of how strong and headstrong Jennifer was about the situation, she got even more public affection and love for being such a strong woman in such an awful time.  And since then, women especially look up to her being able to handle such a stressful job with no one by her side, especially after being dumped publically and being humiliated. 

Now how does this relate to the Smartwater ad?  Along with being a popular figure for women by her attitude and acting, she is also known for her rock-hard abs and yoga body.  At the bottom of the ad, Smartwater quotes her- “Working out feels great…afterwards.  That’s why I drink Smart.  Its hydration I can feel. (And its one part of my routine I never sweat).  What Smart water is trying to do, is for women to see the ad, read what Jennifer supposedly says, and think “well if I drink that water, I will have a body like hers in the future,” and it gets women to buy.  The ad is definitely guided towards women because women are becoming more and more self conscious of their weight these days to keep up with models’ figures or the Victoria Secret Angels’ bodies after watching the fashion show. 

Jennifer Aniston is a prime representative for an ad guided for women because of the love she gets from the fans and how respected she is, and for her rockin’ body that every woman strives for.  

Oh, the Rhetoric of Geico

Rhetoric is happening all around us all the time and we just don’t even know it.  As it seems to be an English technical term, it’s just not appearing in your typical English classes or intensive writing courses.  It takes place in one of the most popular media sources—television.  More specifically, the commercials.  Commercials are meant to pull the viewer in to buying their product.  The way to do so is to grab the audiences’ attention quickly and reel them in in a witty, creative way. 

One particular company’s commercials that stand out to me when I think of grabbing the audience quickly are the Geico commercials.  In the past, they became known for their “so easy a caveman can do it” slogan and it stuck with viewers.  More recently, their commercials have been a man asking, "Could switching to Geico save you 15 percent or more on car insurance,” and then him asking a rhetorical question, one with an obvious answer of “yes.”  My most favorite commercial of theirs would definitely be this one:

Because of the cuteness of the pig and its light humor, this commercial really stuck with many viewers and became talked about.  We’d be at family functions, just catching up around the holidays and at least one person would bring up that commercial or any of the Geico commercials and just laugh about them.  Little do we know that we are in a way getting our amusement from a rhetorical commercial/question.  When he first asks the question, it leaves you confused as to where is he going with this?  And then after they show the clip, you can then piece together the commercial and understand the rhetoric behind it.  Then the more you see other Geico commercials asking the same rhetorical questions about different situation, they leave you thinking more critically, hence the commercial staying with you and Geico doing its job with drawing your attention into their company.  Funny how things work out, huh?

This I Believe

The Power of Patriotism

Styles of Speeches

Last week in class prepping for our “This I Believe” speeches, we were taught the four different types of speeches: memorized, impromptu, extemporaneous and manuscript.

Memorized speeches are pretty self-explanatory—the entire speech is memorized and you go to the podium with nothing.  This is a great style for those who have amazing memory to be able to memorize a whole speech.  You will have great audience-interaction because you are forced to look at them instead of being tempted to look at your note cards.  A negative to this is obviously if you forget your next thought and can’t pick up from where you left off. 

Impromptu is a style where you think of everything you want to say on the spot with no time to prepare your thoughts or anything.  This is a great mode for the classroom setting because the teacher usually doesn’t have as high expectations as they would if you were given time to prepare.  A negative to this style is if you can’t collect your thoughts quick enough and just freeze in front of everyone. 

Extemporaneous is a mix of all the modes.  You do have note cards but they only have bullets of the points you want to make and not forget.  This method works well because even though there are some notes in front of you, you aren’t as tempted to stare at the page the whole time since you have to create sentences and continued thoughts, making for a great time for audience eye contact.  Extemporaneous can take a wrong turn when you can phrase the words on the spot and can’t get your point across in the way you want to say it.  You can also forget important points to say and remember it later and can cause for disorganization of hopping all over the place.

And finally, manuscript.  Manuscript is when you are reading off of note cards or the actual essay itself.  A positive about this type of speech giving is that you have all your thoughts and everything you want to say right there in front of you and just have to read it off the page.  Although this makes the job seem much easier, it can cause more mistakes.  Reading off of a written piece of work can lower the amount of eye contact you make with the audience.  Anyone would be more likely to just read off the page instead of taking pauses to look up for audience interaction.  The number one importance of speech giving is to give a personal feel to the audience.  After all, the reason for you giving your speech is for them to hear.

Manuscript is something most of us are exposed to most frequently—on the news.  The newscasters are reading off of a scroll on a TV screen or big note cards in front of them.  This can take turn in the wrong direction when they misread what is on the scroll, especially being on live TV. 

Or things can go wrong when the person writing the scrolls messes up and the newscasters are unaware and just have to read what is given to them. 

These common mistakes provide entertainment for the viewer’s pleasure but humiliation on the newscasters part and I'd consider yourself lucky if you happen to be watching the news and see one of these mishaps just because everyone deserves a good laugh at either 5 am or 11 pm during the news.  Well at least I know I'd love to come across these mistakes while watching. 

The Rhetoric of Jersey Shore

Every Thursday night at 10:00 pm on MTV, people of all ages tune in to the third season of the hit show, Jersey Shore.  The show basically follows eight guidos and guidettes of New York and New Jersey living in a beach house in Seaside.  What we are essentially are watching a bunch of over-tanned, party lovin’ men and women in their 20’s partying and drinking on the beach and in the clubs, and with the usual GTL-gym, tanning and laundry routine.  Most of them only finished their degree to as high as high school and have been just having a blast with their carefree lives since.  So why is it that American’s are so addicted to them?  One is for their attitudes and their fun lives they live during the three-month period of the show.  Another is, is that they are completely different that who and what we are used to.

           Jersey girls and guys have always been different-the way they dress, the way they act and especially the way they talk.  Using words such as “juice-head guido” and “friggin,” it’s just something everyone else not from that area isn’t used to and it becomes addicting to watch such people act in such ways.            

            Their rhetoric completely fascinates me and probably most of who else watches.  Not only is their language crude and full of words no one else would understand unless they were from Jersey, but the way they present themselves when using such vocabulary.  Most people would like to keep themselves classy and presentable on a nationally televised program.  Not this group of eight.  They were raised and brought up used to being able to express yourself using such crude and inappropriate language and acting out such as fighting on the boardwalk if someone is giving you a hard time or having a fight with one of your roommates.  

Something that just leaves me with questions is why is it that only people from that particular area act in such ways?  It seems to me this is something we just will never know but we will all just continue to watch and be in awe and fascination of their unusual rhetoric and presence.