Brandon, omadi, victoria, jabriya
Amy maestri completely missed the sarcastic tone included in webbs article. She takes everything he says to literally and misses the meaning of his words. For example, when Webb claims hands are holy to the body she explains feet to be devilish thinking that is what he ment. One thing that stood out was the fact that she was giving her opinion about how bad someone's opinion is. The main thing with stating opinion is being able to respect somebody else's. She has every right to disagree with him but instead of just disagreeing with him she continues to criticize him and call him many offensive names. This in a sense makes her point less credible just because she comes off as less wise as she would've if she respected his opinion but just agreed and stated facts. Again she is off when she is confused as to why he made his article political and religious. Webb is an expert on religion and philosophy and was writing towards that specific audience. She did not take into account the rhetorical triangle. if she would have read the last paragraph of the article you would have concluded that the article was written with a sarcastic tone. The article is written in a manner that satire is more than apparent. It is apparent when Webb says that soccer is "running America into the ground". He uses a double entendre. This is satirical because he is a college physiology professor who knows how the brain works. So by saying comments like that with double meanings he is able to go inside ones mind and make them think. The humorous thing about the comment is that; his remarks are not said, and are not made to be taken seriously. In How Soccer is Ruining America: A Jeremiad by Stephen Webb, Webb uses irony immensely throughout the article when he refers to how bad soccer is for our country. He says soccer is ruining our kids by rewarding them for everything they do, which i agree with. But at the same time he says his kids are on multiple travel teams that he supports. If he feels so strongly about soccer being a menace to society then why does he still allow for his kids to play on the teams. It could be because they are more competitive and less rewarding so it makes kids have to work, if that was the case then he should specify because he leaves the audience guessing. He didn't reveal that all his kids play on travel teams until the end of the article that his kids play. He says many offensive things about soccer, he says its a girls sport which is offensive to anybody. Guys who play and girls who are feminist. Also he calls soccer a foreign nation's sport, which is highly offensive to almost anybody. All in all most of his arguments seem invalid just because he is so ironic and rude. The author uses god in many of his references which is actually a very good strategy for many reasons. People listen when they hear words like "God" and "Jesus" as well as many other bible references. The majority of the people that read his blog believe in god so when they have something in common, in a way they relate to him and take his argument more into account than they maybe would before. Webb states "Sporting should be about breaking kids down before you start building them up. Take baseball, for example. When I was a kid, baseball was the most popular sport precisely because it was so demanding" which is very appealing to americans, his target audience. He makes baseball seem like it is the best sport there is and soccer the opposite. Baseball is americas past time which makes many americans side with him on this part of his argument. Also soccer is the most popular sport in the world and one of the least popular in the US which makes most patriots agree with him. His last point states "And then there is the question of gender. I know my daughter will kick me when she reads this, but soccer is a game for girls. Girls are too smart to waste an entire day playing baseball, and they do not have the bloodlust for football". This argument gets the female audience on his side when he calls them smarter than males and not as "bloodthirsty" as well. Webb uses a variety of different arguments throughout his article that each appeal to a different audience, which is in a way, brilliant. The twist is at the end after he finds appeals to different target audiences he reveals to the readers that he has kids on multiple travel soccer teams which confuses the readers, leaving them guessing if he was kidding, contradicting himself, or just plain fooling the audience.
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