Monday, September 10, 2012

Dear Mr. Guy Impersonating the President


While this e-mail does meet all the base requirements of a rhetorical situation, it’s basically spam. I don’t even mean that in a rude way, I’m simply pointing out that the similarities between a spam message and this one are too numerous to call it something else. Perhaps someone relatively inexperienced with the internet would take a serious look at this, but I think the average person would delete it out of hand.

The author is indicated as the President of the United States, and is writing to inform Mrs. Jarmer that the money mentioned would be very helpful, since there’s a deadline.

First we have the unlikely notion that the President would be e-mailing Mrs. Jarmer in the first place. The most obvious assumption is that this is written under someone’s authority, probably by a volunteer within the democratic campaign. This immediately lends a disingenuous nature to anything stated within the body. That same body which also infers that the topic contained within is familiar to both parties involved. It assumes a situation where the body of text is simply a reminder of something intimately understood. 
The e-mail doesn’t really say anything on it’s own. It refers back to an implied conversation, and you aren’t enlightened during the reading as to the real topic at hand. While certainly holding to the idea that communication between friends requires less, it really leaves you wondering: What deadline? Why am I donating? What am I donating to? Why is three dollars the specified amount? Why are there so many colons in such a short e-mail?

At the same time the e-mail appears as a short message to a friend, it should also be noticed that there is nothing within the actual body that specifies, or requires a personal touch regarding, the audience. The flow and style appear to me as contradictory in this way. It seems like a reasonable thought that if you knew your reader so intimately, you might address them in a manner suited to you relationship. Why “Friend” and not “Marla”? It feels broken somewhat. Maybe they’re sort of friends, but Barack is really awkward and uses language that’s just enough off kilter that they don’t spend much time together, and she definitely wouldn’t go get ice cream with him, no sir.

Finally, from a more personal standpoint…I don’t understand why anyone would assume this style of e-mail was a good idea. Instead of having a grasp of the stigma already in existence involving junk mail and working to circumvent that, the author here appears to embrace it.
Nathan Y. (433 Words)

1 comment:

  1. I really like your stance on the article. To begin with, your title is spot on. I'm pretty sure everyone knows that President Obama did not personally write this document. I completely agree that the e-mail is basically spam material. After reading your post it made me wish I had included a lot of your points into my own post. I agree that the e-mail would leave the reader questioning. The e-mail fails to answer a lot of important questions the reader might have. The big one would be where the money would be going exactly. I think the three dollar donation left a lot of us wondering why that amount. I am pretty sure a lot of us would agree that five dollars would be a proper donation not a weird amount like three dollars. After looking over the e-mail a couple times I agree that the e-mail does not really seem to be directed towards a "friend." The author calls Ms. Jarmer friend, but what friend says hey friend to another. Friends would normally address each other by their real name or a nickname. Overall, I think you did a really good job on analyzing this rhetorical situation and pointing out the problems.

    David Sacre
    (205 words)

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