The invention of social networking such as YouTube, Twitter, Facebook, and MySpace are becoming extremely popular in the societies 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 thing 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 thing driving a car. The last two panels of the comic depict humor that instills an emotion and gives it 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, and the text within the bubbles.
The first thing to look at is the comic visual hierarchy which is a visual path--that indicates to your audience what to look at first, what to look at second, what third, and so on...(Compose design advocate 285)." When reading the comic left to right the first panel may throw off some people because they may read the girls bubble first, but after reading it, it wouldn’t make very much sense. All three of the arrangements in the panels are the same scenes just modified by the body languages and the facial expressions 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 then reality.
The basic understanding of YouTube is a video sharing website where users can upload, view, comment, 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 9,305 years! 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 websites for doing the same thing just a little bit modified such as Facebook, MySpace, photobucket, and Twitter. These websites were developed to form social networking that allows others to make connections with friends or relatives through the computer or internet. With the YouTube program you can be an unsubscribed user to look at videos but to download you need to be a subscriber. The subscribing process is quick and painless.
YouTube was embarked by three former employees from PayPal; Chad Hurley, Steve Chen and Jawed Karim. The former PayPal employee’s story to start YouTube is said to have started after a dinner party in April of 2005 where many people had brought their camcorders. The Conversations turned to how hard it was to share videos with others using the internet. That inspired the friends to set off to Hurley’s garage to write some code that would make online video sharing speedy and trouble-free. (YouTube, Wikipedia) The company is now based out of San Bruno, California. YouTube has become very popular since its debut in the early months of 2005. People are now posting more than just funny videos but also political and educational. Nationwide people are uploading about 8000 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). 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 help pulls 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 is 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, 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 stocking her. Other things in the comic that help describe the symbols being used are in the text bubbles. He says that she is hot and watches her a lot. Typography, "the study of how lettershapes--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.
YouTube or the internet 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. People are so obsessed with it that they spend up to 5 hours a day on YouTube. Clearly, being connect to the internet is more important than being connected to people face-to-face. Technology is taking over our lives and this humorous comic “The Internet Frame” makes that clear.
