Another Malcolm Gladwell Book

It's interesting that I would be introduced to an entirely new definition of the word "epidemic" after first learning in health class this week. An epidemic was first defined to me as the spread of a disease throughout a population on a huge scale, but Malcolm Gladwell takes that definition to a whole new level. An epidemic is defined by Gladwell as a trend that could be fashion, crime trends, and general widespread human behavior. "The Tipping Point" is an interesting and thorough social commentary and statistical analysis of human behavior where Malcolm Gladwell uses parallelism to portray his statistics to his audience in an interesting and understandable manner to get them to understand the magnitude of certain factors that affect how epidemics spread.
Malcolm Gladwell first uses parallelism to compare the social situations he intends to thoroughly examine and the way that actual disease spreads. He first talked about the way that syphilis spread through a population, talked about the social behaviors that contributed to that, and then explained how similar behaviors constitute an amazing and rapid trend in cellphone usage or fashion trends.  This is effective because this addresses the canon of memory in the audience, and harnesses their understanding of how the way infection spreads through a populations and draws parallels in factors that most people don't recognize in social behaviors.
Gladwell also paralleled contrasting ideas in which he explains how most sociologists would explain a trend and then contrasts it with how he would explain the trend. Most sociologists would look at different factors such as environment, the people, and the transmission factor, but Gladwell looks at different things, like a small group of people that he calls the Extraordinary. This minority of people is what makes a big difference in a huge population based on their personability, influence on others and normal behaviors. He also looks at the stickiness factor and the importance of context rather than just location. Gladwell achieves his purpose of making the audience realize the magnitude of the small things because he shows that sociologists don't observe on a small enough scale. The parallelism furthers the accomplishment of this purpose by adding more of a sense of ethos because it makes it seem like Gladwell understands social behaviors more than most sociologists.
The book gives a whole new idea of how people behave in groups and basically gives an effective outline of how to create a trend. I find that this book is effective and easy to read because of the way that Gladwell breaks down the information and statistics.

Sheetz and Wawa Divide

These last few weeks, I've been spending day and night at Wawa to survive my robotics build season. Since we are spending up to 40 hours a week stuck at the high school, my friends and I make multiple trips to Wawa a day to buy heaps and heaps of sandwiches, Monster energy drinks, coffee, and junk food. An article that definitely hit close to home this week was a NY Times article that explored the cultural divide between Sheetz and Wawa fanatics throughout the state of Pennsylvania. I didn't even know what Sheetz was, but the article implicitly explained why I didn't know what Sheetz was. It's because I lived smack dab in the middle of a Wawa fanatic region. The article explained things so well and in such an entertaining manner that I was able to actually get through an article and enjoy it.
This article was really fun to read and very different from many other NY Times I've read so far. NY Times is usually my source of news and informational editorials that usually have a very serious overall tone, but this article had such a lighthearted purpose. Its purpose seemed to parody the "religiousness" of chain convenience store fandoms and have a whimsical mockery of how serious people take the "cultural divide." The first thing I noticed was that the article used a lot of irony in their diction, and that they made it ironically serious and used a lot of sweeping and general words that made the convenience store followings seem really grand. Just the fact that they called it a "cultural divide" was amusing because they made it seem like the "convenience store culture" is such a serious thing.
Another effective strategy they used to parody the convenience store fandoms is the interviews of the Sheetz and Wawa customers. It was laugh-out-loud hilarious because the article presented it like they were serious in giving these customer testimonials, and it seemed like the customer didn't even know the writer was making fun of them for being so "die-hard" about "the Wawa sandwich-ordering touch screens."
It was also really entertaining because of the way they organized the different opinions on Sheetz and then Wawa. The author alternated the Wawa and Sheetz testimonials and gave the article a flow that made it seem like a live debate between passionately fat Americans.
The author's persona is one I really enjoyed and would like to achieve in my writing. It was really effective in the way they built up the controversy and how he implicitly teared it down as a trivial issue. I thought his purpose of parodying the controversy was achieved because he was able to entertain the audience with his diction, use of testimonials and organization. I would definitely like to read more articles by this author.

Hotels.com Advertisement

I am glad that I get the chance to look at why the recent Hotels.com advertisement had so effectively captured my attention and emotional appeal. I love to watch the hotel service employee give his customers exactly what they want, no matter how detailed and tailored or outrageous it had to be.
 It's easy to say that I've never had an advertisement effectively persuade me to do something or purchase their product, but the Hotels.com advertisement made me really want to book a superfluous trip on their website just for the sake of good customer service and being pampered in such a luxurious way.
The first thing I noticed was the lofty 40's music titled "Make Someone Happy," by Jimmy Durante. The music was an effective choice, not only because of the happy lyrics that encourage selfless action, but the tone of the music also gives the audience a relaxed feeling. It makes the viewer feel like they are watching a perfect world on the television, where people are given exactly what they want when they want it. I find that the choice to use a song in a major key naturally makes the entire commercial a whole lot brighter.
The second thing that was very effective was the style of the animation. The style of the animation was very rounded, giving the cartoon a happy and bubbly tone. I find that the rounder the art style, the less harsh the piece is overall. The art style emphasized the kindness of the service man, who never faltered in how happy he was to make people of all kinds happy.
The choice was also bright and magnificent. It was pinkish and orange overall, emphasizing the aura of a sunset on the beach. It gave the viewer an emotional feeling of being truly relaxed and on vacation. It was much more effective than other vacation planner commercials because other vacation planner commercials tend to use bright blues and whites that seem a little fake and stereotypical of what you would expect from going to the beach. The pink gave the vacations planned on the commercial a homey feeling, and made it much more personal.
All of these elements were very effective in getting viewers to book vacations on Hotels.com. The visuals were very unique and evoked a feeling of serious care and customer satisfaction instead of guaranteeing fun on a vacation, it promises you to fit you perfectly. Their purpose in evoking that intimate feeling with its users was very effective because it set them apart from all other vacation-booking websites.