TOW #19: "The Six Things That Make Stories Go Viral"

Could Aristotle have been the key to finding the next trends on twitter?

http://www.newyorker.com/online/blogs/elements/2014/01/the-six-things-that-make-stories-go-viral-will-amaze-and-maybe-infuriate-you.html

     Undeniably, the internet is one of the most significant ways to share information. That said, certain content is shared more than other content. What exactly distinguishes how much content will be shared? According to Maria Konnikova, there are several specific ways to achieve "shareability". Maria Konnikova is a writer and journalist who focuses primarily on psychology and literature. She is currently writing her first book. She graduated from Harvard University and studied the science of self-control at Columbia University in 2013.
     As a consumer and a daily user of the internet and its contents, it is important to understand what becomes popular and why, so as to avoid being an uneducated consumer. Konnikova wrote "The Six Things That Make Stories Go Viral Will Amaze, And Maybe Infuriate, You" is both to educate internet users and explain the science behind how content becomes popular. This article is applicable to all internet users.
     By appealing to ethos early in her essay, Konnikova follows the classical oration model, effectively establishing the credentials of the various sources she uses (which she later uses extensively). She writes, "When Jonah Berger was a graduate student at Stanford," then describes his interest in the five most-shared articles of each day from the Wall Street Journal. In providing this credible account, Konnikova gives readers a reason to care about her topic. If a Stanford graduate is interested in her topic, why shouldn't the average reader be interested as well?
     Konnikova uses rhetorical questions to transition from her introduction to the narration, once again following the classical oration model. She asks the reader, "What is it about a piece of content– an article, a picture, a video– that took it from simply interesting to interesting and shareable?" If the reader was not enticed by her appeal to ethos in her introduction, surely their drive for curiosity provoked by her use of rhetorical questions would entice he or she.
     Her second paragraph, which serves as the narration, provides the reader with an analogy relating Aristotle's philosophies to twitter. Such starkly contrasted ideas proves the relevance of shareability. She compares Aristotle's beliefs about rhetoric to the shareability of, say, a tweet or a Facebook post. This strategy adds another appeal to ethos to reestablish the universal presence and relevance of "shareability". Several times in her essay, Konnikova references several of Aristotle's beliefs previously described to strengthen her argument. Since she isn't an expert on the topic she writes about, this strategy is very effective.
     To end her essay, Konnikova addresses a possible counterargument. "We may be changing what will become popular even as we're studying it." With this point, Konnikova brings her topic into the real, dynamic world. Although she essentially undermines most of her essay by including this point, she understands that to not write it would prove her lack of understanding of the study as a whole. Had she ended her essay on this point, it would have been considerably weaker. However, she instead ends with a trending title to disprove the counterargument presented and regain her idea's strength. She writes that at the time she was writing the article, the top trending story on a popular website is titled, "Her Little Boy Has No Idea His Mother Is About To Die. What She's Doing About That Is Amazing." This example hits almost all of the points she mentions that make for a trending title: it appeals to pathos, it is positive, it is inspirational, and it is sensational. The fact that it is current at the time she wrote this article makes the reader realize although her ideas may be irrelevant in the future, they are certainly relevant as of now.

TOW #18: "The Death of the Moth" by Virginia Woolf

The cover alone depicts Virginia Woolf's struggle with mental illness in The Death of the Moth.

http://ebooks.adelaide.edu.au/w/woolf/virginia/w91d/chapter1.html

In her post-mortem publication The Death of the Moth and other essays, Virginia Woolf begins by talking about a seemingly benign subject. Woolf’s book was written in 1941, the same year she committed suicide. The collection of essays was then published by Leonard Woolf, her husband, in 1942. In her first essay of her book, “The Death of the Moth,” Woolf describes an insignificant moth’s slow, hopeless death. Although only implied, the true purpose of “The Death of the Moth” is to describe her own struggle with mental illness, as shown by her suicide not even a year later. Virginia Woolf was an British essayist, novelist, and critic who was educated by her parents. Her childhood was fraught with illness and death, starting with her mother’s death when Woolf was only 13. As shown in her writing, the hardships and instability she dealt with have heavily influenced her thinking. The audience of Woolf’s work included those who were interested in the effects of mental illness and appreciated the same style of writing as her father, Leslie Stephen, who was a notable author and critic as well. In “The Death of the Moth,” Woolf employs various rhetorical devices and strategies to compare her own struggle with death to the physical struggle of the dying moth. She personifies death, saying “the insignificant little creature know knew death”. This tones down the intensity of death. Rather than saying “he died,” which sounds much more brutal, she eases into the idea by suggesting that death was just another person to be met. By downplaying death, she is possibly rationalizing to herself how suicide was insignificant – just another idea. Additionally, Woolf describes the moth’s death in excruciating detail to emphasize the struggle of living with a mental illness. She is drawing a connection between the slow and sure death by mental instability to the drawn-out death of the moth. Overall, Woolf provides interesting insight into the mind of a person with mental illness at a time when mental illnesses weren’t as widely recognized through her use of personification and excessive detail. 

IRB Introduction: The Big Short

The Big Short, by Michael Lewis, discusses the banking crisis of 2008 from his view with a focus on the different people involved. I chose this book because it has been recommended to me several times by various people as a crucial read for my generation and because, at this point, I am interested in economics and finances. From what I've read at this point, I have come to understand that The Big Short is not so packed with financial jargon that I couldn't read it, given my limited experience in the field. Just having read so far, I notice several fresh metaphors which gives me reason to believe that Lewis's writing style will be interesting in addition to the book's interesting topic.

TOW #17: "Loving and hating the superbowl"

"Loving and hating the superbowl"

What better time to bring up the morals surrounding football than the morning of Superbowl Sunday?

Source: http://s1.ibtimes.com/sites/www.ibtimes.com/files/styles/v2_article_large/public/2013/01/31/super-bowl-xlvii.jpg

Right after the Superbowl every year, everyone is eager to talk about the winner, the loser, the bets, and the advertisements, and this year was no exception. But who is going to talk about the mental, emotional, and physical toll the game takes on the players? That would be concerned spectators like the author of "Loving and Hating the Superbowl" Gene Seymour, a film critic who has written for publications such as The New York Times, The Washington Post, and Newsday about media and culture. By writing this opinion-based editorial just hours before the giant event, Seymour's purpose is to present the reader, presumably a football fan, with the more negative side of football and ultimately lead him or her to consider their own stance his ideas. To achieve his purpose, Seymour uses allusions, rhetorical questions, and comparisons. To begin his somewhat controversial article, the author makes an allusion to John Matuszak from "North Dallas Forty." This serves to softly introduce his idea in a non-offensive way. To transition into his main point, Seymour pulls from the movie, quoting,  "Every time I call it a game, you call it a business. Every time I call it a business, you call it a game." Seymour shows that just as there is blurring contrast between business and football, the line between cruelty and entertainment is blurred in the NFL. After Seymour delves into his main point regarding immoral excitement, he poses a question for his audience, asking, "How does one stay passionate about football in the face of the grim, steadily mounting number of cases involving ex-players undergoing physical and mental injury and anguish over the sport's long-term effects?" Seymour sympathizes with fellow fans by expressing his desire to be able to enjoy football while still conveying his message. Also, the question itself invites the reader to think about how they're participating in this potentially wrongful form of entertainment. Lastly, the author wraps his article up by tying back to his original allusion by comparing football to business. He says that business has a powerful edge over the game (implying further confusion between football-watching morals) and that soon, the game might loose (implying that the allure of immoral entertainment will win over the crowd). 

Source: http://www.cnn.com/2014/01/31/opinion/seymour-super-bowl/index.html?hpt=op_t1

TOW #16: René Magritte's "Clairvoyance"

 "Clairvoyance" by Rene Magritte

"Clairvoyance" was painted by Magritte in 1936 in Brussels, Belgium.

http://www.wikipaintings.org/en/rene-magritte/clairvoyance-self-portrait-1936#supersized-artistPaintings-211326

Any artist during the surrealism period had to deal with the inevitable "I don't get it" response from many critics who still preferred less abstract art. Although René Magritte's work is not as abstract as that of many other surrealist artists, it was somewhat more controversial since it was so nearly non-surrealist. All of his work contains discernable parts that, if rearranged, would render his work to be non-surrealist. René Magritte is a Belgian surrealist artist who lived from 1898 to 1967. His work focuses on the idea of how people perceive reality. He is most well-known for his painting "The Treachery of Images" featuring the words "this is not a pipe" (in French) below what is clearly a pipe. Magritte studied art at the Royal Academy of Fine Arts in Brussels. As of 2009, he has his own museum in Brussel. "Clairvoyance" is a painting featuring a painter who sees an egg but paints a bird. This painting has multiple purposes, all of which are intertwined. Explicitly, he wanted to convey the idea that artists do not always paint what they see, but rather what they can expect; perhaps, although the egg has not yet hatched, an artist can predict with (almost) absolute certainty what will be in the egg with only a bit of guesswork regarding the details of the bird, such as color, shape, and so on. After all, "clairvoyant" comes from clair voir, literally meaning "to see clearly," particularly involving the future. Implicitly, Magritte wanted to show the reader that the artist and the viewer can perceive reality differently, either as what is inevitable or as what is present. This piece was not composed for an audience who appreciates fine art, but rather an audience who appreciates thought-provoking work. Magritte is not applauded for his talent as much as his ingenuity through simplicity.  To achieve his purpose, Magritte uses techniques such as juxtaposition and realistic qualities. He juxtaposes the simple egg against a red background with a majestic, complex bird against a white background. This creates a feeling of admiration for the artist in the painting for his ability to see complexity in simplicity. His use of realistic qualities to offset the somewhat unrealistic factor to "Clairvoyance". Whereas the bird looks very realistic and detailed, it was drawn from an egg. I believe Magritte achieved his purpose because it was so simple that it allowed me to draw meaning from it without any confusion. He effectively conveyed a complex idea through a simple image. The primary reason I believe he achieved his purpose was due to his spectacular juxtaposition of the egg and the bird. 

TOW #15: Reverse-Engineering a Genius

Reverse-Engeneering a Genius

This is the painting by Johannes Vermeer that Tim Jenison recreated. 

http://www.vanityfair.com/culture/2013/11/vermeer-secret-tool-mirrors-lenses_slideshow_item4_5

Throughout history, artists have always belonged to a misunderstood culture. Very few find themselves in the spotlight, but when they do, the light surest is blinding. But what if "art" as we know it – the traditional form, with paints and a canvas – wasn't actually what we think it was? For artists like Renoir, Manet, Monet, da Vinci, and Michaelanglo, there has always been the assumption that their work was genuine and self-created. What if... it wasn't? Particularly in the peculiar case of Johannes Vermeer, who suddenly took to art at the age of 21 without any actual instruction. Did Vermeer even take to art in the first place? According to the latest information in art – rather, replication – he may have used a camera obscura to create a photo-like copy of a real scene. Upon visiting the Rijksmuseum in Amsterdam, Tim Jenison, a man who had worked with design theory nearly his entire life, remarked, "It looked to me like Vermeer was painting in a way that was impossible." In a breakthrough following months of speculation, Jenison figured out that he could use a small mirror, angled precisely, to recreate just about any image, despite his complete lack of artistic ability. To try to recreate one of Vermeer's "paintings," Jenison used his wealth to recreate the room shown in his painting to try his new technique. He even recreated 17th century mirrors and paints for the experiment. In the end, he was successful. He says he is now 95 percent sure. What does this mean for the world of art? In this essay, the author, Kurt Andersen, uses ancedotes and dramatic diction to make the reader, any art enthusiast, consider art theory as a whole. These two devices are used to create an intriguing, convincing essay by playing off the reader's natural desire for drama and controversy. Andersen is an American novelist, educated at Harvard University, who is primarily famous for his Peabody-winning radio show, Studio 360. I think Andersen's most effective device was his striking syntax. He bounced back and forth between sentence formats, playing particularly with sentence length for effect. Overall, a very interesting essay with much to consider.

TOW #14: 'Affluenza' isn't as crazy as it sounds

'Affluenza' isn't as crazy as it sounds

Russia Times reporting on the controversial case of Ethan Couch.

http://www.allvoices.com/contributed-news/16153654/image/102276016-ethan-couch-avoids-jail-time-thanks-to-affluenza-defense

"Affluenza" is a term coined in the 1970s to encapsulate an odd, "affluent-influenza" that supposedly affects young, wealthy kids and their lack of motivation due to a poor upbringing. A benign idea, until some desperate attorney pulls it out of nowhere to defend a minor accused of four counts of intoxicated manslaughter. In his article, Danny Cevallos attempts to explain the court system and why a bout of affluenza might actually be a legitimate mitigation of punishment. Danny Cevallos is a legal analyst that currently works for CNN. He is a criminal defense attorney, which qualifies him to talk about a recent court case involving 16-year-old Ethan Couch, charged with hitting and killing four innocent people while driving under the influence of alcohol. Couch walked away with 10 years of probation rather than 20 years of prison, primarily because of his claim of affluenza. Cevallos uses this incident to comment on several broader ideas regarding both affluent children and juvenile courts. His purpose is to explain the reasoning behind affluenza and – more importantly – to comment on the current state of the juvenile court system. Cevallos wrote his opinion editorial for a broad audience: anyone who is or knows a child, wealthy or not; anyone in the legal system as a whole; even anyone who has heard about the controversial case of Ethan Couch. To portray his view on the juvenile court system, Cevallos uses anecdote-like medical studies and his own personal knowledge on the defensive side on court cases with a focus on juvenile cases. Although Cevallos's article kept me interested, that wasn't his purpose. Considering the fact that Cevallos has experience in law and writing, this article should have been spot-on. However, I feel as though Cevallos set out with one purpose (to explain his view on affluenza) and ended up somewhat off topic (describing and revamping the entire juvenile court system). Regardless, I do think his use of medical studies as factual anecdotes was very effective at forwarding his purpose. 

http://www.cnn.com/2013/12/18/opinion/cevallos-case-for-affluenza/index.html?hpt=op_bn5