Visual Rhetoric

The first site that I would like to analyze would be my favorite website of all time, Youtube. As a site that allows visitors watch user posted videos for free, Youtube has always been very good at what it does, and a big part of Youtube's success can be found in its rhetoric. Youtube's layout is constantly changing but at the moment it's home screen consists of a centered search bar at the top with a few links to either side that allow you to set up or access your account, a large advertisement beneath, usually a movie trailer, followed by a short list videos that are currently popular. Beneath that list, the only thing the site has is a vertical list of videos posted by people you have subscribed to. This layout is, I feel, incredibly effective at drawing in viewers because it is both simple and straight-forward. People that visit Youtube go there in order to watch videos so having the search bar front and center is a great way for youtube to invite people in and get them to explore more of the site. The ad, while a bit large, doesn't take away from this feeling because the ads are videos themselves which fits in with Youtube's video theme. Youtube is meant to appeal to appeal to anyone and it's simplicity, inoffensive color scheme (white with a bit of red), and overall usefulness (since the videos themselves are often very useful) make it a great site.
The next site I would like to analyze is Hulu. Hulu is similar to Youtube in that they are both sites that allow visitors to watch videos but are, in essence, very different. While Youtube is built and supplied with new videos by its users, Hulu only has videos involving televised productions. That being said, Hulu's rhetoric is, I feel,  good but not as effective as Youtube's. At the top of the home screen there is a search bar, smaller than youtube's, that will fade slightly into the giant advertisement that takes over the entire screen. The ad is awkward because it will shift between several different ads with some of them not even video related. If you scroll beneath the add the site behind to look better, with neatly arranged video links to videos or video series' that are either popular or are related to ones you have watched in the past. Hulu uses a style that seems more "official" and somewhat corporate, which is fine but has always put a bit of hesitation into me as a casual viewer. The feel though is likely meant to feel that way due to the fact that Hulu only uses "official" material. Overall I'd say Hulu is effective at appealing to visitors but could do better in the future.
                                                                                                                -Garrett Garcia

Questions I Hate Answering

     I think that it's safe to assume everyone has to answer questions sometimes that we'd prefer we were never asked. For some questions, the difficulty in answering lies in some emotion or fear we'd rather not discuss with relative strangers, and for others the problem is in the tedium of needing to answer the same questions over and over again when the answer is both simple and unchanging. If I were to think about what questions I personally hate answering, two immediately come to mind. The first is a harmless question, but definitely one that fits into the 'tedious' category. Though I don't look hispanic, my last name is Garcia so whenever someone learns my last name, invariably, there is a pause where they stare directly at my face, grow visibly confused, and ask "Are you Mexican?"to which I must respond by saying yes, and that my great-grandparents on my father's father's side immigrated to the US from Mexico, and say that I am a quarter mexican. The question is a legitimate one, and I understand why people ask, but it gets tiring having to give an overview of my family tree every time I meet someone new.
     The second question that comes to mind when I think of questions I hate answering is "Do you want to be a teacher?" Like the last question, this one is also legitimate but is, none-the-less, hard to respond to since I don't have a clear answer. When people hear that I'm an English major, almost always they want to know what career I want to put it towards and 'teacher' is by far the most obvious choice. Unlike the last question though, I don't have a good answer to this question. I don't know what career I want to aim for after college. I've tried thinking about it, especially when I was choosing my major, but I always come up blank. I chose English because I enjoy it and because I don't see any better choices right now, but that's hard to tell someone when they ask which is why this question, more than any other, I hate answering.
                                                                                                                    -Garrett Garcia

TED Talks Speech Analysis

After watching several speeches on TED Talks, the one I liked the best was "Try Something New for 30 Days" which was spoken by Matt Cuttis. You can watch the speech Here. "Try Something New for 30 Days" was a successful speech for, I feel, several reasons, the first of which is easily the tone Cuttis used throughout the presentation. Cuttis spoke in a way that was both calm and confident, which goes a long way when one is trying to get a point across. If a speaker is attempting to convince an audience, there is nothing more counterproductive than sounding as though he or she doesn't even believe him or herself. Another thing that Cuttis did well was that he walked around on stage and looked at different parts of the audience. Watching someone stand perfectly still and stare at a fixed location gives the impression that the speaker is scared, which there is nothing wrong with, but fear speaks against any point a speaker is trying to say. Like I said earlier, confidence is very important. Cuttis looked like he felt at ease. He used his hands, he changed his tone to fit what he was saying, he told personal stories that roped the audience in and he made sure to give enough background so that each story made sense. The visuals he chose were relevant and sometimes funny and also helped build towards the greater point Cuttis was trying to make. Overall, Cuttis simply did a lot of things right which is why I felt that his speech was the best of all the speeches I had viewed.
                                                                                                                          -Garrett Garcia

Detroit vs. Everybody Response

The article "Detroit vs. Everybody" was an article that I actually found to be very informative. Detroit is one of those places that has obtained a reputation as being a place of ruin and loss; a sinking ship. I admit that I've personally never given Detroit much thought, I've read a few articles about its financial decay and heard a few people talk about how it's dying, but I've never been there and have never actually put in any thought to what living there would be like. This article did a good job to illustrating that, dying or no, it's still a city like any other. There are people who like and work and go about their normal lives, unfazed by the economical state of their city. Few people visit, understandable given Detroit's reputation, but beyond that it's probably no different than anywhere else. The pictures were particularly effective since words would likely have been ignored. "I doubt this one guy is right where dozens of others are wrong, the city must be dying." we'd likely think to ourselves. The pictures made it impossible for us, as readers, to ignore the fact that there is beauty in Detroit. Despite the beauty though, I still don't think I'd want to go there. The city is in a bad state right now and I feel like, despite this article, there is a lot more that going on in that city than was written in the article. The writer was only in Detroit for three days and only visited the most tourist-oriented locations. I'm not fully convinced that Detroit isn't what I've always heard. That being said however, this article did convince me that Detroit isn't nearly as bad as my passing imaginings liked to pretend it was. I still don't want to visit, but I'm not as opposed to the idea as I would have been before reading the article.
                                                                                                                 - Garrett Garcia

2013 Bodies Response

The article "Bodies of the Year" by Wesley Morris is an article that makes a statement saying that the public desire to see beautiful bodies has diminished in 2013. As a general rule, I personally don't keep up with social medias, I don't have a twitter account, I never use my Facebook account, I don't read magazines, and a rarely go to the movie theater to watch movies. It has always been my opinion that what people do in their free time is their own business and is not something that I have the right to invade or judge, even if that information is freely given via social networking sites. With that being the case, I don't know much about celebrities or what people think of them beyond a few of the most outrageous stunts they do, such as Miley Cyrus's twerking. I don't know whether people are getting tired of seeing beautiful bodies. It makes sense that the movies that become the most popular are ones that have the best story lines and most enthralling plot, and stories like that don't always make concessions for beauty. I heard somewhere once that the only constant in the word is change and while that might not necessarily be the case, I feel like change is what is happening. Beauty is something human beings have always prized and probably always will in one way or another, but how prominent a place we give beauty in our society varies. Perhaps we as a culture are getting tired of seeing nothing but pretty people doing pretty things, perhaps we are simply branching out so that we can experience new themes, different stories. I don't know what will happen in 2014, but I look forward to finding out.
                                                                                                               -Garrett Garcia