Lassell Poem

I found the "How to watch your brother die" very moving. I think it showed a good view of how many people deal with uncomfortable, and difficult situations. The main focus of the poem obviously being a brother having a hard time grieving the loss of his brother. I think in a way the man lost his brother long before he actually died, he lost him when the brother told him he was gay. I think he lost him at this point because he did not know how to be close with him, how to deal with this change, the person he grew up with and was close to has really been a whole another person in a sense. I also think that through his brothers death he realizes he shouldn't have turned away from his brother that it probably would of been nice to have support when he came out. Seeing the way people look at his brother just because of his sexual orientation angered him because well, why should that matter? His brother is dying and people are sitting there judging him for being homosexual, like it is a disease so they cant get to close or help him?  For the first time I think he saw how hard it was for his brother to live a normal life like everyone else and how tough it must of been to go through it without his family. It's obvious in this text that it shows how uncomfortable people are about people being different especially when it comes to sexuality. I also noticed "it's just like a wife, only commitment is deeper because the odds against you are so much greater" because I think it is so true. People in the gay community I believe are held up to a higher standard when it come to relationships working. I think people do this because many people against gays can then say "see their relationships don't even last, they don't take it seriously so why should gay marriage be legalized?" Homosexuals are often put in horrible situations and treated differently for something they did not choose and I think Lassell's poem shows how people need to open their eyes and be accepting because you never know what you're missing out on, whether it be life in general, a good friend or something else people shouldn't pre-judge because by the time you realize how great someone or something is it might be to late. Overall, I enjoyed Lassell's poem and found it to have a lot of emotional appeal whether you're supportive or not of gays.

Journal #6

If you have ever watched an Old Spice commercial and laughed and were enticed to watch the whole thing you would think that the commercial was doing its job, right? Well what if that was not enough, though many people do watch the commercial that does not mean it has helped sales rise. Many different techniques are used in the Old Spice commercial, for example they use a famous athlete, they always use someone with a nice body that has there shirt off and lastly the commercial directly talking to women in order to help sell the product. In the Old Spice commercial pathos and ethos are intended to influence there audience to buy there product by asking questions, using humor and showing that this attractive man has all these great qualities but in reality these things are excluding many demographics and are hurting sales.

In the Old Spice commercial with Isaiah Mustafa, a famous football player, he tries to get young men to buy Old Spice by showing that he uses the product and that young men who use it as well can be the kind of man women are attracted to. Though normally you would think this would make sense because men want to attract women but unfortunately, they are excluding a large demographic of homosexuals by doing this which does not help there sales. Along with the problem that they are only appealing to a certain percent of there audience by trying to get men to want to buy the product to get women to like them, using a famous football player also does not help influence those who do not watch football. The idea of using a football player was intended to allow the audience feel familiar with the spokesmen and in hopes people would look at him as role model because of football therefore wanting to be like him and in turn get people to buy Old Spice so they can be like him. This did not happen as well as Old Spice planned because Isaiah has not been the most known football player and has actually gotten more publicity and gained fans from this commercial than the other way around. So in reality ethos worked against there intended purpose.

Every Old Spice commercial has a few things in common one of the most obvious being an exaggerated humor. This humor is used to appeal to college aged males and though it does accomplish the humor aspect it does not help sell the product, in fact in the commercial the humor distracts from the actual product. More often than not the product is not even in Isaiah’s hand except at the beginning of the commercial and the end. Even with that the full name of the product is only mentioned once in the whole commercial. So though Old Spice uses pathos to create a emotional connection with it’s audience using humor it has not been beneficial with a 7% drop in sales for Old Spice body wash.

Many people would argue that using logos is good idea to increase sales by directing the commercial to the women and asking questions and letting the audience answer. Unfortunately, this has worked against them for a few reasons one being it confused viewers about who should be buying the Old Spice body wash. Asking women questions such as “Should your man use Old Spice body wash? I don’t know” allowing women to answer but by having Isaiah talk to the women it leaves men out because the focus is being directed to what women want and like rather than just focusing on men and finding out what they want. Though I believe Old Spice was ultimately trying to get men to ask themselves what would women like because they were inferring that men are trying to attract women, I think this was to complicated for a commercial. Overall this just made viewers forget about the product and focus on the humor of the commercial.

In conclusion, through pathos and ethos and the many other techniques Old Spice used in hopes to up sell there product it back fired and seems to confuse viewers and just focus on the entertainment aspect which in turn only hurt there sales. Old Spice tried to be creative and complex with there commercial but it turned out to be to complex to follow the underlining message of buying the body wash. Old Spice has even recognized that the commercials have not helped and have stopped using Isaiah Mustafa, even though he has become extremely popular and loved by viewers, it has not been enough to increase sales.

Journal #5- Sloan text

After reading and looking at the hypertext I realized I liked the written text better. Though it was nice to see pictures, I feel I got more from the text. I became distracted when I was at the website I would read a little bit then I would look at the picture and click on a new link, I ended up going back and forth to the links multiple times before I finished. I don't necessarily like to read a bunch of text all at once but the written wasn't that much and I feel I was able to get through it much quicker than the hypertext which I found more beneficial because I don't like to waste time. I did like that you got to see the pictures and understand better what the text was talking about but I'm one of those people that always thinks the book is better than the movie because I like to picture it myself and leave up to my imagination. From my point of view I think both have there strong points and I think which you like better really depends what kind of reader and person you are because everyone has a different way of learning. The hypertext and the written text were also different in the sense not everything talked about in the hypertext was in the written, it gave you different details which I thought was both good and bad, I thought it was good because this way if you read both you were still something out it but also bad because if you just read one your not getting the full story. Overall I think reading both helps you understand the written text better and gives more of an insight.