The 12 Year Old boy

 Link to article: https://www.theonion.com/12-year-old-spends-entire-hiking-trip-fantasizing-about-1851282560

There is an article I saw on The Onion. The article is about a paragraph long, but it is very satirical in showing today’s youth’s addiction and obsession with technology. It is called “12-Year-Old Spends Entire Hiking Trip Fantasizing About Which Video Game He’ll Play When He Gets Home,” and the link to it is attached above. The article uses satire to correct the behavior of many kids being very obsessed with technology. In order to build that satire, many strategies are used in the article. Reviewing the article, it is describing how a 12 year old boy, Austin Tanden, spends his whole hiking trip thinking about video games, and goes through his inner thoughts. As the article does that, it makes use of multiple tones. Firstly, in order to build satire, the article lands on an exaggerated tone. Along with the exaggerating tone inside the article which says that Austin spent “entire hiking trip” thinking about video games, the title of the article is also exaggerative. Even the article title states that Austin “spends entire hiking trip” fantasizing about video games. Really? Could he actually spend that much time thinking about video games? Probably not. But the way the article describes Austin’s thinking about video games is an overstatement. The overstatement leads to an exaggeration in the article, and thus contributing to formation of satire. In addition to exaggerative tone, Ignorant tone of Austin also highlights his addiction with video games. He says to his mom that, “Huh? What, Mom? You guys found wild blueberries? That’s good. Where was I?” His behavior of not really paying attention to his parents highlights how lost he is in his thoughts about video games. And that lostness shows his ignorance, although unintentional, caused due to video games. When the article describes the behavior of Austin, one might think that it is only about Austin. But no. The article uses parody to imitate Austin. It shows Austin as a behavior of many young people who are attracted to technology, and eventually get obsessed with it. And besides the tone, cataloging different video games, and italicizing their names also emphasizes addiction with technology. Overall, the article satirizes the addiction with technology very effectively.

Comments

  1. Julia MMarch 3, 2024 at 4:35 PM

    I really liked how you included rhetorical questions to make your piece stronger. I think your commentary was informative and how you explained the tones it created.

    ReplyDelete
  2. Yungeun (Daniel) LeeMarch 3, 2024 at 7:03 PM

    I liked your organization of your analysis as you started off by describing what strategies the article used and its basic gist. After you finished describing what went on in the article, I liked how you wrapped up your analysis by focusing on the purpose and what it was actually criticizing, which was the unhealthy relationship/addiction young adolescents often develop with electronic devices/the internet and how it leads to a disconnect from the real world.

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