When I began my long search for a comic, I had no idea what I was doing. Not a single comic strip stood out or seemed to make any argument for which I cared. I started out doing the cursory analysis over one of Charles Schulz, “Peanut” comics and decided otherwise because I didn’t like the argument being made, so I found this one and liked the funny and true concept of it. I thought It was a comic I could look at and laugh every time, but I wasn't sure what argument the comic was trying to construct, and I'm still not completely sure to this moment; however, I feel as if I've learned a lot about making a rhetorical analysis of a comic strip. Over the course of my three word project drafts, I made several changes to what I believed to be the main argument of the comic strip.
Because I originally had no clue what argument was being made, I had a pretty rough time on my statement of purpose and was a rocky start to my first draft.
In my first draft of the essay, I felt that I needed focus on putting in the basics in and getting my argument across. I focused more on getting the information on the page and not worrying much about grammar, punctuation, and spelling. I did this process fast because I was on a role of what I wanted to put in it. I knew I would have a lot of revisions and editing to be made in the second draft.
From the first rough draft to the second draft, I feel as if I made some changes for the good and for the bad. Most importantly, I added my thesis statement, and changed what I believed to be the comic strip's main argument. I changed it to something simple and to the point i.e., “By analyzing the comic below “The Internet Frame” through a rhetorical lens, the argument is that technology is becoming an everyday craze for people and taking over their lives.” This change is somewhat important because the majority of my essay is focused around the concept of how technology is becoming very important to our lives. It was also suggested for me to reevaluate all the information I had about YouTube, so in the end I cut a good length (about 215 words) of it out. So, by the second draft I made my thesis statement, cut information out about YouTube, rearranged and added different multimedia elements, and added on to the conclusion. The revisions I made that were a bad choice were to move the YouTube information down in the essay and talk about parts of my comic before it and end with some of my comic.
In the final draft I did more editing on the cultural context of the argument and put in some more information about pathos. I also worked a little more on the conclusion and rearranged some multimedia elements and hyperlinks. The final draft of my essay is not only the finale of our pre-writing exercises, various peer reviews, and drafts one and two, but it is also the product of my need to get across information about a topic that I feel that people enjoy, but don’t know it could be a problem at times.
Rough Draft 1
Rough Draft 2
Statement of Purpose
The invention of social networking sites such as YouTube, Twitter, Facebook, and MySpace are becoming extremely popular in the society’s everyday use. In today’s world, being connected through the internet has become just one of the major “necessitates” people need. (gadetizer) Obviously technology is becoming reality to the world. By analyzing the comic below “The Internet Frame” through a rhetorical lens, the argument is that technology is becoming an everyday craze for people and taking over their lives. To understand this comic and the argument being made we need to analyze the cultural context from which the comic develops, as well as the visual hierarchy, anthropomorphism, symbols, and the pathos within the comic.
The comic strip posted above is called ‘Internet Frame’ and was posted on June 2, 2009 by an unknown author. It is a multi paneled comic that depicts a young girl and a fabricated character, which is an alien-looking being driving a car. The last two panels of the comic depict humor that instills an emotion and gives the comic a general sense of pathos. The elements in the comic are what makes the pathos come out. Some of these elements are the characters, transitions from the different panels, the playful hues of the three frames, and the text within the bubbles. The characters obviously show pathos, because it is an alien talking to a girl. The ways they are dressed are also humorous. The girl is wearing what looks like a tree costume and the alien is dressed in human clothes. The second panel builds up the comic with the overall idea introduced in the first frame. The last frame, of course is what makes the humor come out. The girl’s facial expressions in the frames is showing she is creeped out and even aghast at times with the alien, but she starts to get curious and asked how many hits did she get. The humor comes into play when the alien says “12! And only ten of them were me.” 
The first thing to look at is the comic’s “visual hierarchy” which is a visual path--that indicates to the audience what to look at first, what to look at second, what third, and so on...(Compose design advocate 285). In our book, Compose Design Advocate, it states that illustrations always cause attention first, then the text (CDA, 301). So, we would look at the first, second, then third frames. When reading the comic from left to right the first panel may throw off some of the audience members because they may read the girls bubble first, but after reading it, it wouldn’t make very much sense to the audience. All three of the arrangements in the panels are the same scenes just modified by the body languages, the facial expressions, and the view of the characters. When looking at this comic you may think it is just an ordinary car with a little animation having an alien and human girl in it, but the author is really using his imagination and arguing that seeing it on YouTube is far more important than reality.
The basic understanding of YouTube is a free video sharing website where users can upload, view, comment on, and share video clips. It is becoming an important force on the internet and in digital media but, the vast majority of videos on YouTube today are short, amateur videos of about three minutes or less. YouTube hosts over six million videos, growing at about 20 percent every month, and has up to 15 hours of videos uploaded every minute. (gadgetizer) The total time spent watching YouTube videos since it started in 2005 is equivalent to 9,305 years!(YouTube, Wikipedia) The YouTube website can be uploaded by individuals, and some of the media corporations including CBS, the BBC, UMG and other organizations offer some of their material for the site, as part of the YouTube partnership program. (YouTube, Wikipedia) There are also several other free websites for doing the same thing just a little bit modified such as Facebook, MySpace, Photobucket, Grugle, Blogster, Flickr and Twitter. YouTube has become very popular since its debut in the early months of 2005. People are now posting more than just music and funny videos but also political and educational materials. Nationwide people are uploading about 8,000 clips a day and viewing around 3 million. (YouTube, Wikipedia)
The author uses anthropomorphism which is the attribution of human characteristics to non-human creatures and beings, phenomena, material states and objects or abstract concepts (dictionary.com). This is very common to for authors to display, because it helps aid in making it humorous. In the comic above the anthropomorphism comes into play on the alien, he is seen wearing clothes and driving with two hands on the wheel which are all human characteristics. This is what helps pull the audience into the comic and also makes it humorous. Another thing that helps make the comic humorous to the audience is the levels of abstraction. These are noticed by the distorted look of the alien, the clothes the girl is wearing, and the hearts above the aliens head. Some specific features on the alien which make it abstract are his eyes, color of his skin, and shape of this head. Because of his distorted and abnormal overall look he is known as the “vector of attention.”
Another important factor in the comic is the symbols used. In the second panel there are hearts above the aliens head to symbolize what the alien is thinking and saying, obviously about the girl. Hearts and the color red are known to represent love and affection. This is the exact case in which the author intended the audience to think. The alien fell in love with her watching her dance in person and on YouTube. If the hearts weren’t there it might make the alien seem like he is stalking her. Other things in the comic that help describe the symbols being used are in the text bubbles. The alien says that she is hot and watches her a lot. Typography, "the study of how letter shapes--on paper or onscreen--work functionally and rhetorically (279)," is shown in the second frame. The word “there” is in all capitals and is underlined, this helps the audience emphasis the comical part and supports the argument that really being there in reality doesn’t matter or isn’t as “hip” as seeing and commenting it on the internet.
It is simple to believe this comic’s overall idea is to be humorous and make the audience laugh, but there is also a message to be told. This message is that the internet and YouTube in general has become dangerously vital to our daily lives and to society. In today’s world, being connected through the internet has become just one of the major “necessitates” people need. It is hard to go a day without being on the internet. People are so obsessed with it that they spend up to 5 hours a day on YouTube.(gadgetizer) Clearly, being connected to YouTube, or the internet in general is more important than being connected to the world outside of internet and interacting with people face-to-face. Technology is taking over our lives and this humorous comic, “The Internet Frame” makes that clear.
Work Cited
BBC Strikes Google-YouTube deal. BBC News, Spring 2007. Web. 29 Oct. 2009. .
"YouTube." Wikipedia. Web. 29 Oct. 2009. .
YouTube serves up 100 million videos a day. USA Today, 16 July 2006. Web. 29 Oct. 2009.
YouTube now and in the future - YouTube for business. 2 June 2009. Web. 10 Nov. 2009. .
Levels Of Abstraction. Web. 10 Nov. 2009. .
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