The recent hit "Shit Girls Say" YouTube videos have provoked multiple different parodies and other versions of videos with this same concept. With over 6 million views, the Shit Nobody Says video has definitely become a hit across the web and pop culture. Perhaps the lack of credibility and facts and instead the immense amount of opinionated, mocking jokes serves as the most appealing and entertaining part of this video. Simply summarized in the caption, the video rapidly fire out "phrases you will often never hear" to the viewer. Essentially, this video appeals to viewers due to it's simplicity and humor. As each "phrase" continues right after the other, the man in the video's tone of voice and facial expressions ceaselessly shoot out at the viewer with multiple different emotions. None of the phrases have any specific justifications, but instead just state an opinion. These opinions, such as, "I miss my dial-up," for example, appeal to people who stand up-to-date in the technological world and also hold an awareness of the progressions it has made. Additionally, the video appeals to those familiar with current pop-culture, as it references bands, movies, and actors and actresses. Most appealing, in my opinion, however, is the assumed, ironic logic behind each of these statements. Creators of the video made the assumption viewers would understand why each of these phrases often go unsaid; they imply assumed and inferred logic to their video. For a simple example, the man in the video shouts in an overly-excited manner, "AIDS!" as if it were the most exciting, pleasant, and happy topic anyone could ever discuss. Ironically, however, society commonly knows that AIDS kills innumerable amount of people each year around the world and, furthermore, does not qualify as a topic to celebrate or shout out excitedly as he does. One may then ask the question, why does this video come off as so funny to viewers? Including both significant and insignificant struggles of life, the video makes a mockery of many situations we worry ourselves over daily. Often, I personally want to throw my computer at the wall when it takes forever to buffer videos, regret and feel like puking after eating excessive amounts of fast food, and yearn to punch the gum out of the mouth of people who annoyingly smack and chew their gum while I attempt to focus and concentrate on something. Mocking serious and not so serious topics in this manner, however, comically appeals to the viewer, for whatever reason. All in all, the video Shit Nobody Says will most likely continue to spread through the internet as people find laugh through each ironic phrase.
Kim. I think think the crucial aspect of doing effective rhetorical analysis (for the purposes of our class) is going to be achieving depth. You pick one term-irony-and make that the center of your analysis. This is well done; however, I would encourage you to, after you have done what you just did, relate that analysis to something that is culturally shared. You do this to an extent when you ask the question "why does this video come off as so funny to viewers?" I would recommend that you take this question a step further. Why do we find this genre of video so humorous? It's the same reason that we find memes so amusing, I would argue.
ReplyDeleteAnother important aspect of rhetorical analysis becomes the ability for the analyzer to continually ask the question: How? What moves do the creators of this video make, and how do these moves affect our perception of the irony, the humor, the logic, in essence, the common cultural ground (imbedded in audience).
J. Harris