A Rhetorical Analysis Essay On The Onion

On television we see many advertisements for products like a pill that provides protein and removes fat or a yogurt that gives you stronger brain power. The marketers of these advertisements know how to appeal to the human mind in order for their products to sell, though many of them go through outrageous means for this goal to be achieved. This article published in the publication “The Onion” clearly satirizes and exaggerates these means by demonstrating exaggerated ethos, parodizing satisfied customers, and sarcasm to show exactly how easily marketers can get you to buy their product.

Marketing a product and making it sound believable is difficult and a lot of the time, advertisers spout random nonsense that appears to make sense for the purpose of getting it to sell. The article exaggerates this falsified ethos by using intelligent sounding words and phrases like, “[MagnaSoles] is a total foot-rejuvenation system.” It even went as far as inventing its own measuring system and pseudoscience; the kilofrankels along with its corresponding “science”, Terranometry. In doing so, the author demonstrates

the amount of exaggeration marketers are willing to express to sound believable so that they can get their products sold.
Commercial marketers also demonstrate so called “real” customers and get them to express the positive aspects of their products and purposely dodge the negative aspects.

The author proves this point by the addition of quotes from “...consumers, who are hailing [MagnaSoles] as a welcome alternative to expensive, effective forms of traditional medicine.” The author gave the article a sarcastic, humorous tone by the addition of the comments given by consumers such as, “...after wearing MagnaSoles for seven weeks, I’ve noticed a significant decrease in pain and can now walk comfortably. Just try to prove that MagnaSoles didn’t heal me!” The typical timeframe for any healing wound is approximately seven weeks. In adding this quote, the author sarcastically demonstrates how gullible consumers sound in advertisements, but effectively give the product an edge in

sales.
Another satirical strategy used in the article is found in the statements of the satisfied customers. One of them says, “Why should I pay thousands of dollars to have my spine realigned with physical therapy when I can pay $20 for insoles clearly endorsed by an intelligent looking man in a white lab coat?” In saying this, the author articulates the fact that some consumers are gullible enough to believe this falsified ethos built up by the way somebody speaks and dresses for a commercial. This man in a white lab coat can look intelligent, but may not have any medical background. These commercials purposely make their visuals look intelligent, however, they really only do it to get their product to sell.
The extreme lengths put into advertisements are overly expressed in this article, and clearly demonstrate that in using falsified ethos and exaggerating their topic, they are able to get a large amount of revenue by the gains of their selling product.