Hi all,
For Wednesday, please read George Saunders’ “Braindead Megaphone” and “In Persuasion Nation”. Once you’ve finished reading, please submit a reading response as a comment to this post. I am leaving the topic of your response open–I would like you to find something that interests you about these readings and to write about it analytically. But you should address a point of intersection between the two pieces in some way, beyond the fact that they were written by the same author. You might consider what the argument of each piece is and how the experience of reading changes when the text is fiction rather than nonfiction. What can one genre achieve that the other cannot?
If you are having trouble thinking of what to write, try choosing a quotation that speaks to you in some way–a line that is interesting, perplexing, or mysterious, or that makes you think of something else. Think about analyzing the language of the line and considering how it connects to the text as a whole. A good reading response is more likely to raise interesting questions rather than resolve them definitively.
Please come to class with a copy of these pieces and prepared to discuss them both.
As a reminder, your reading responses are due as comments on this post before midnight on Tuesday, 8/29 (aka 10 hours before class) so I can have the chance to review them. Late work will count against your participation grade.
Thank you for a great first day today. I look forward to this working with you all this semester!
In the readings “In Persuasion Nation” and “Braindead Megaphone” by George Saunders, Saunders focuses on the ideas of inner strength and how using powerful language is essential to convey your thoughts. For example, in “In Persuasion Nation”, when the bear hits the ground and bounces from it, he realizes that the green symbol isn’t a God and learns that he must rely on himself to be in a good state: ” ‘A false GOD, obsessed with violence and domination! Reject him!” This emphasizes how the bear finds courage within himself to save his life and wants to be control of his own being. In “The Braindead Megaphone”, Saunders refers to the Megaphone and how he may not be the most talented individual, but has a dominant personality that makes people listen to his ideas: “His main characteristic is his dominance. He crowds the other voices out. His rhetoric becomes the central rhetoric because of its unavoidability.” Since the Megaphone has a overbearing voice and strong presence, it makes it difficult for others to share their ideas and therefore, people are pressured to discuss and accept the Megaphone’s thoughts.
However, “In Persuasion Nation” and “The Braindead Megaphone” are written in different genres. “In Persuasion Nation” is a fictional work, which uses characters and symbols to explain the theme that everyone is allowed to believe what they choose to. For example, the green triangular symbol makes everyone think that it’s all-mighty because it “resurrects” the grandparents, Kevin, and other characters from the grave. Fictional works have characters that possess human qualities and perform human-like actions, which helps us connect to the text because we may see ourselves in those characters. Unlike in “In Persuasion Nation”, “The Braindead Megaphone” is a non-fiction work and zooms into the world of media and how they repeat the same facts by using simplified language, like in the Monica Lewinsky scandal: ” ‘More at five about The Stain! Have you ever caused a Stain?’ “. Saunders talks about a real-life event to explain how the media’s use of simple language makes people have a fixed mindset and limits their beliefs. If this continues in the future, then more people in the world will have similar thought processes and not offer anything creative to the world for future generations.
interesting take, Mamadou. Good attention to language. I am compelled by the idea you raise at the end about the diminishing potential for creativity–how might we see that reflected in the world around us?
Both The Braindead Megaphone and In Persuasion Nation contain themes which criticize and analyze the impact of consumerism on our broader culture. Both of these works require us to understand content creators as needing viewership and recognition; for the most part, this basis rings true. After all, television couldn’t possibly exist without advertising revenue. Just as well, large corporations couldn’t exist without the advertisements they use to sell millions of items.
In Megaphone, Saunders acutely observes that asking an informant (anyone presenting an argument) to “tell us the truth” is different than asking them to “tell us as much truth, while still making money”. Informants can be anything from television presenters, to advertisements that we see on TV. Because TV needs viewers in order to survive, its contents need to be altered and made to seem interesting, even if they aren’t. This results in the content we view being dumbed down; nuance doesn’t sell as well as impressive spectacle and gossipy stories. According to Saunders, more attention is being paid towards production values and flashiness than the morality or intelligence of the content presented on TV.
In Persuasion Nation presents ads expressed as absurdist vignettes, whose sole purpose is to sell an item. Because content producers at the highest levels of exposure exist mostly to sell products, the truth they tell isn’t always whole. For example, the “Slap It Up Your Wack” bar bends and contorts its nutritional contents – it has to lie in order to sell better, and isn’t able to hold itself up to scrutiny. However, this doesn’t matter much – its commercial will still be played and be viewed by millions. The vision depicted in Persuasion Nation is much less optimistic than that of Megaphone, in which Saunders suggests that the national conversation can become more empathetic and knowledgeable if we hold up those with the power to inform a broad audience to greater scrutiny.
The overarching theme of the two works is that consumerism doesn’t lend itself easily to detailed thought. Brands can’t afford to have us thinking about alternatives – if a brand isn’t the first thing you think of when you need to go buy something, its advertisements have failed. Therefore, every brand, every idea, every story is wrapped up in flashing lights, juicy details, and whatever else may grab attention. As the GrandChickenBoatCombo explains in Persuasion Nation: “Great taste is what made America great!”. “Not a bunch of yappin’!” affirmed the wife of Abraham Lincoln. As Saunders observes in The Braindead Megaphone, most people just don’t have enough time to think deeply about the hundreds of messages they receive daily. He wants us to be aware of this, to scrutinize vague and broad ideas.
This is a compelling argument, and well put together. I’d continue thinking about the tension you identify between consumerism and thought–it would be interesting to dig into Saunders’ language in these two pieces (particularly In Persuasion Nation) to see how he might be broaching that idea on the line level.
In the texts “The Baindead Megaphone” and “In Persuasion Nation”, George Saunders highlights how vulnerable a society that conforms to a repetitious lifestyle without question can be. However, while in “The Braindead Megaphone” Saunders uses simple and real-life situations to clearly convey his concept to the reader, in “In Persuasion Nation” Saunders merely hints at this concept through the use of a fictional story which could cause confusion for the reader. The different styles of writing used by George Saunders in these two texts, plays a crucial role on the initial interpretation by the reader. For example, in “The Braindead Megaphone” the message conveyed is that our society is vulnerable to the dominance of powerful voice, which could lead to a drastic decline in the emergence of new ways of thinking for future generations. However, it explains that, as a people, we are not doomed because merely thinking for ourselves, questioning one another’s beliefs, and creating new and more efficient ways of living, as Saunders describes, can be the antidote for our illness.These ideas of Saunders are clearly stated and analyzed throughout “The Braindead Megaphone”, unlike the ambiguity of the text “In Persuasion Nation”. In “In Persuasion Nation” Saunders conveys the idea of a restricted and repetitious society that lacks the ability to question or go against this lifestyle. Unlike “The Braindead Megaphone”, Saunders makes it unclear if such a society can find a solution. For example, although the polar bear gains the ability to question and go against this thoughtless style of living, no one listens but instead calls the polar bear insane. As the conclusion of text, Saunders doesn’t make it clear if the polar bear’s sudden realization reveals hope for new ways thinking, or the fact that no one listens reveals that such a society can not be fixed. Unlike, “The Braindead Megaphone”, in “In persuasion Nation” Saunders allows the reader to develop his or her own thoughts about the future of such a world, rather than personally being told how to think and live. In “In Persuasion Nation” Saunders creates a deeper meaning behind his words that may be more difficult to grasp than in “The Braindead Megaphone”. Although George Saunders conveys the message of how vulnerable a society that conforms to a repetitious lifestyle can be, Saunders ultimately reveals that the source to this dominance lies within the idea of commerce, or “the will to survive”.
Jahvonte, this is a keen reading of these two texts. You do a nice job of synthesizing Saunders’ and translating it into larger social terms. I’d be interested to see how you see these ideas actually being enacted (or not) in 2017.
Saunders’ pieces, “Braindead Megaphone” and “In Persuasion Nation” both attempt to deliver an important message in divergent styles. The former is an essay which employs short anecdotes that culminate into a monologue, interspersing metaphors and examples to support Saunders’ point. His point is that the American media has been dumbed-down, especially post-9/11, in order to fuel the bank accounts of higher-ups. He hypothesizes that as long as someone is saying something with a loud volume, it will be heard and discussed. The content of the speech or the intelligence of the person is rarely considered these days when it comes to mass media. People desire easy-to-digest sound bytes rather than meaningful discourse. Saunders suggests that to fight against this issue, we must address it and realize that we all contribute to the dumbing-down in one way or another. In this way, Saunders is doing his duty to raise awareness of this subject by writing his essay. I feel more informed on the behind-the-scenes of the absurdity of the media (which is a broad generalization) through this piece. His other work, “In Persuasion Nation”, is a satirical short story that is less obvious in presenting its purpose. It is quite ridiculous and silly, with Saunders heavily using exaggerations to highlight the idiocy of commercials/marketing. The story follows the journey of characters such as a talking orange, a man whose fiancee left him for a Twinkie, a mashed up pile of a human head, and more as they take revenge on those who have wronged them. The piece doesn’t make much sense and is seemingly random, as it is trying to imitate the commercials we see on TV these days. The point is to grab your attention by any means in order to sell this piece as a short story, much like how commercials will use cheap tactics to reel in gullible buyers. Both of Saunders’ works are similar in that they uncover the simplicity and alacrity of consumerist America. “In Persuasion Nation” demonstrates this by dropping the reader into a zany world of product placement and lack of logic, in which you have to determine from the inside what is wrong with the world around you. “Braindead Megaphone” is Saunders’ own opinion piece, where he outlines his arguments and counterarguments in order to better understand his point. Though the two pieces differ in style, they achieve the same effect – that is, blowing the cover on the media we consume, whether it be news stories or commercials.
You do a good job of thinking through to the theme of the course here–how can we look rigorously and skeptically at the world around us? In Persuasion Nation is certainly silly, but that might perhaps be part of his larger project–how could the humor in the story be reflective of this argument about dumbing down of content?
“A culture better at imagining richly, three-dimensionally, would have had a greater respect for war than we did, more awareness of the law of unintended consequences, more familiarity with the world’s tendency to throw aggressive energy back at the aggressor in ways he did not expect.” (“The Braindead Megaphone”)
As discussed in “The Braindead Megaphone” and shown in “In Persuasion Nation,” if the megaphone is loud enough, then it can sway an entire population’s opinion, regardless its quality of content. A majority of consumers prefer to use minimal brain power and can be easily strung along. Our standards have been lowered enough to be mostly entertained by low leveled humor. And this proves to be detrimental as we, as a society, no longer sees through the correct lenses when encountering a problem. We take what is given and do not think too much about it. As stated in “ The Braindead Megaphone,” we lack awareness in consequences and in the gravity of some situations.
In “In Persuasion Nation,” the advertisements are grotesquely violent and they would be disturbing if not for the loud voiceover at the end which changes the entire mood with one sentence. While these vignettes are overly exaggerated, it is not far from reality. When the megaphone summarizes the content for us, the thought that remains is the megaphone’s. We do not think about the underlying ideas being presented and opposing views are lost in the void. The green triangle, representing the power of the media, was able to easily subdue the famous coalition. It clouded their purpose and made them forget what they were fighting for.
The media is the number one platform used to persuade the public. They plant biased images within the minds of the people and thus stifles their imagination. We begin to imagine a world that is far from the truth. This occurred during the age of imperialism and the times when war propaganda was popular. Today, as seen in, “In Persuasion Nation,” it is mostly used to sell products. Media plants images of the “perfect body” and the most “ideal person.” It tricks you into thinking that some things are better than they actually seem.
Sally–this is a good use of a quote to enter and begin to engage with these two texts. You do a nice job of bringing the two texts into conversation with one another. You might consider looking carefully into the language of that first quotation you chose–what does George Saunders mean by “the world’s tendency to throw aggressive energy back at the aggressor in ways he did not expect”? How might media culture contribute to this process of forgetting?
Both “The Braindead Megaphone” and “In Persuasion Nation” constantly refer to the idea that the media has become an overpowering force within the minds of the public. The public being, anyone who watches television, has a social media account, or even listens to the radio for that matter is affected by only a handful of people who control what is being released to the world via the media. In, “The Braindead Megaphone,” the Megaphone Guy had the most power, despite the fact that his ideas were not completely articulate or well thought out. In comparison to today’s news stations, many reports that we listen to on television sound completely blown out of proportion than it needs to be. For example, in the weeks prior to the presidential election in 2016, it was absurd how many times Fox News, NBC, and even CNN focused on Hillary Clinton’s email scandal. When the scandal first became publicized, it was classified as “breaking news” and quickly became one of the most talked about news stories of the time. Due to its popularity, news stations continued to report every detail about the scandal, whether the facts were correct or not. Similar to the line in “The Braindead Megaphone,” when Saunders wrote, “Is human nature such that, under certain conditions, stupidity can come to dominate, infecting the brighter quadrants, dragging everybody down with it?” Clinton’s irrelevant scandal had seemed to infiltrate every news media outlet in the United States and beyond because we, the public, allowed it. It proves that the media is a driving force on our way of thinking and in some way or another, permeates our conversations as well.
The same theme can be observed in “In Persuasion Nation,” however with more of a focus on advertising and marketing. While death, murder, and even suicide are all unmistakably present in this text, the central focus still remains in the mass media’s control over the general public’s state of mind. Every situation mentioned in the text related back to a product that a company was selling. Whether it was Ding-Dongs, Doritos, or MacAttack Mac&Cheese, there was always some sort or product involved. Personally, I believe the significance of why the means of obtaining these products were so gruesome was to represent the extent that larger corporations are willing to go to in order to make their product successful. For example, in the second scenario, the teenager, Timmy, left his injured grandmother in a rosebush instead of calling 911 just so that he could eat his MacAttack Mac&Cheese. This is similar to how large companies disregard harsh working conditions, and underpay their employees, because their only focus is selling a product without consideration of basic ethics towards other human beings. In the end, the media is used as a method of advertising because many Americans are blind to the truth behind a company’s means of productions, due to lack of media coverage. The end result is a tainted product becomes a best selling product and once again, big businesses win through the power of mass media control of our minds, and inevitably, our daily lives.
Miriam, you have some great readings of these texts here. I think your reading of In Persuasion Nation is particularly compelling–it hadn’t occurred to me to read the gruesome aspects of the story in connection to corporate interests. Also, your choice of bringing the 2016 election into conversation with Braindead Megaphone is a rich one, and could be a good avenue to go for your essay. Great work!
George Saunders’ “In Persuasion Nation” and “The Braindead Megaphone” are both literary works aimed at giving the reader a serious message through serious, thought-provoking essays. In his non-fiction piece “The Braindead Megaphone” he questions how the average person blatantly accepts information given to them by so called “trusted” sources. He starts off his piece by creating a scene for the reader to envision. A party is going on, and multiple guests are conversing about topics they care about. When out of nowhere a man with a megaphone walks in and starts blurting out whatever he wants. Slowly but surely, he influences the other guests due to his sheer omnipresence’s in the room. Saunders writes that the other guests diction start to mimic the megaphone man, they start to question their own thoughts, and believe he is important to them. The megaphone man, as Saunders refers to him as is a symbol of our media. Media isn’t just one man influencing the thought of others. Saunders seems to be warning the reader of the power media holds, the danger it possesses. George Saunders defines “…the Megaphone as the composite of the hundreds of voices we hear each day that come to us from people we don’t know, via high-tech sources…” The media is comparable to the green triangle symbol from Saunders fictional piece “In Persuasion Nation”. He starts off his piece by introducing characters that are “evil” and those that are “good”. For example, the Slap-of-Wack bar was a bully to the orange, stabbing him multiple times and then disposing of him. Saunders uses a lot of comical aspects in his fictional piece that helps his story along. We meet a polar bear with an ax in his head that is somehow still living, walking, and thinking. The polar bear gets confronted by the corner of the Slap-of-Wack bar, now god, the green triangle symbol in his home. The polar bear believes that the green triangle symbol is all knowing, similar to how people blindly trust the media, and therefore obeys him. However, when the polar bear attempts to break the system, he gets laughed at by the neighboring penguins. This resonates in Saunders “The Braindead Megaphone” when he says, “It strives to antagonize us, make us feel anxious, ineffective and alone; convince us that the world is full of enemies and of people stupider and less agreeable than ourselves…” We see that a lack of original thought and searching for answers will lead us into trouble.
You’ve done some great analytical work here, Leon. It’s smart to bring Saunders’ comments on isolation to bear (no pun intended) on the ending of In Persuasion Nation–I think those two moments really speak to each other. What do you make of the comical elements you pointed out?
In both “The Braindead Megaphone” and “In persuasion nation” George Saunders started these two pieces with short stories that seems like they don’t relate to each other. However, they both came down to relate to each other. In “The Braindead Megaphone” Saunders said “Megaphone Guy will ruin the party. The guests will stop believing in their value as guests, and come to see their main role as reactors-to-the-guy.” Social media had taken over most of our daily lives, people started to stop talking about their own life. Instead they talk about other people’s life on social media. People really started to lose their own identity and just want to fallow what the social media present to them, such as people making videos of them wasting food, abusing pets, going around the city cutting people’s earphone, scaring people and videotaped down their embarrassment, all these videos that goes viral on the internet. People started to think that these things are normal and even morally correct to do since so many people do it online. They’re just going with the norms and also, make some profit out of it since lots of people are willing to watch them. Just like “In persuasion nation” all the short stories are relating to commercial nowadays, how Timmy would choose the mac and cheese over his grandma, and also, the grandparents who choose Doritos over their grandson. They are just trying to make some profit no matter how disgusting the process is.
Kate, you are asking some important questions here. It’s interesting to consider how our sense of self can be threatened by our connection to the media. For your next response, you might work on bringing your ideas more into conversation with the language of the text itself. Nice work!
The readings, “The Braindead Megaphone” and “In Persuasion Nation” by George Saunders, utilize various analogies to analyze the relationship between the media and the public. Saunders criticizes the way that media has taken over our lives and affected the way we think and act. He brings up a dominant and unavoidable voice that people tend to hear above everything else which causes them to do or believe in certain things. When there is a voice that appears to be stronger and more assertive than others, any alternative ideas cannot be shared. For instance, in, “The Braindead Megaphone,” Saunders uses a megaphone analogy to emphasize this idea of a commanding influence that is controlling people whether or not they are aware of it. “Megaphone guy is a storyteller, but his stories are not so good…they go out too fast and to too broad an audience. Storytelling is a language rich enterprise, but Megaphone Guy does not have time to generate powerful language.” This shows that the dominant voice, which is usually shown through media, is holding people back and limiting their ability to think for themselves. “In Persuasion Nation” also explores this concept of an overpowering figure through the green symbol, which manipulates the other characters. The way that the green symbol takes over the minds of everybody seems to be a direct correlation to the way that the media corrupts people by preventing them from thinking on their own. People find it easier to just listen and absorb what someone else is telling them rather than to open up their minds and form their own opinions. We often fail to even notice the effect that the media has on us but Saunders feels that by becoming more aware of the power of the media we can reduce its impact on the way we think. The media remains an integral part of our society so it is vital that we learn to judge the validity of the information that is being provided.
Daphne–you’ve done a good job here of reckoning with Saunders’ projects. Now that you’ve gotten to this point, what do you think of this argument? How can we develop on our ability to judge information?
In the texts, “In Persuasion Nation” and “The Braindead Megaphone”, George Sanders has revealed the attempts of large companies and the media in efforts to maximize the influence on the public. The portrayal of news and products such as Doritos and MacAttack Mac&Cheese have convinced the general public that these things are acceptable. This is shown in “In Persuasion Nation”,when the Slap-of-Wack bar was victorious in the battle between the organic orange due to, the nutrition label of the bar not brought to light. The invisibility of the label and the statement that the Slap-of-Wack bar not containing fat demonstrates the knowledge of the public and how companies can limit the information being communicated to the consumers. This message connects to Sanders’ other written piece, “The Braindead Megaphone”, because the barrier between “stupid” media and the media that makes one think about morality and truthfulness exists. The media, hopelessly, creates reports on information to force the public to believe it is “serious news”. For instance, Sanders states that he had watched a local reporter make invalid reasons for his investigation about a busy mall during Christmas. The conclusion that the reporter had claimed was that the mall was busy due to the holiday. The assumption and the reasoning created a circle; the news was foolish however, the public thought it was legitimate and supportable because that was the media that they were used to.
These two pieces were very intriguing. The basic premises of each included how important communication is. It is an extremely valuable skill that can often be overlooked. Every day we communicate and share our thoughts with one another. The clear majority of us do so based on our emotions. Making decisions based on logic as opposed to emotion could save people from losing friends, jobs, and much more. “The Braindead Microphone” discusses the notion of a person having a dominant voice. A loud voice, along with a powerful demeanor are not the sole factors of success when speaking. The organization of the speech, the intelligence level of the speaker, and the audience are crucial for success. Often, the person loudest thinks he is the leader of the room, but is he? Sometimes the best thing to do is listen, which most people struggle with. Media is discussed extensively in the piece as being skewed and flawed. Overall, I think success in anything comes down to authenticity. When no valuable news exists, news channels should not include innocuous news. “Persuasion Nation” is somewhat different than “The Brain Dead Microphone” however also similar. “Persuasion Nation” discusses an ad, and how it is televised often. Many of these ads fail to include specifics. They often possess lies and flaws. Most people are unaware of the flaws and continue to buy or think about buying that product. One personal example that we are all aware of is Coca-Cola. This powerful brand has developed into a superpower for soda. Buyers continue to drink even though it is terrible for your body. This theme is concurrent in most newspapers and with the sale of cigarettes. As years go by, our world has in one sense become slaves to our phones, emotion trigging ads, and drugs. We continue to do certain things, even though we are aware of the consequences. If you notice, the government continues to allow the sale of cigarettes. The monetary result is more important the life of a human being. These two pieces stress the need for absolute transparency along with authenticity.
The manner in which a subject is communicated can alter your viewpoint, allowing someone else’s actions and ideas to shape/manipulate your own.This concept presents itself within the two passages, “Braindead Megaphone” and “In Persuasion Nation”. Both passages also explore how the profitability of consumerism impacts the content shared by the media.Through a series of fictitious stories, such as, grandparents neglecting their grandson for a bag of doritos and a woman leaving her spouse for a twinkie, “ In Persuasion Nation” highlights the exaggeration and fabrication found in modern advertisements. Within the article, a polar bear reflects after being mutilated, “Was selling what all that suffering was about?” The bear questions the necessity of having an elaborate scene in order to sell an item, showing how unrelated an advertisement can be to a specific product. Advertisements tend to introduce products in a creative manner in order to appeal to audiences and improve sales. Some real life examples include the Doritos commercial in which dogs attempt to purchase doritos at a grocery store or Red Bull’s slogan “Red Bull gives you wings”. Although these representations are unrealistic, they are humorous and thus increase the popularity and sales of a product. Additionally, depending on how a commercial is presented, you can unintentionally associate a product with good attributes even if an advertisement does not provide genuine reasons to, making you more prone to purchase the product. Similarly, in “Braindead Microphone”, Sanders discusses the media during the O.J. Simpson Trial, “Because the premise of the crime’s national importance was obviously false, it had to be bolstered…To wring thousands of hours of coverage from what could have been summarized in a couple of minutes every few weeks, a new rhetorical strategy was developed.” Even though the contents of the trial was inessential to everyday life, it was told from several different angles and broadcasted heavily, sparking national interest. Moreover, the media’s display of this story parallels the actions of the Megaphone Guy. The Megaphone Guy is described as having a form of dominance, “He crowds the other voices out. His rhetoric becomes the central rhetoric because of its unavoidability”. This action is similar to that of the OJ Simpson Trial since the trial dominated the media, drowning out other news. The media exploited the trial’s popularity in order to reap profits
George Saunders in his pieces “In Persuasion Nation” and “The Braindead Megaphone,” tackles similar themes of how television influences the public. In his nonfiction piece, “The Braindead Megaphone,” Saunders directly dictates to the reader what he views as the problem with the media, how it developed and what he views as the solution to the problem. In his fiction piece, “In Persuasion Nation,” Saunders does not directly tell the reader anything. In fact, any meaning that could be extracted from “In Persuasion Nation,” must be done so through reader interpretation. This allows Saunders to write in vivid imagery and creative storytelling while allowing the audience to read his piece and extract their own meaning which may differ from what Saunders had in mind.
Saunders argues in “The Braindead Megaphone,” that “our national discourse had been so degraded,” by the sensationalism of the media over the Monica Lewinsky scandal, 9/11 and that it became much worse after the Iraq War. Our dumbed down media has made us less thoughtful and less aware of the world. This is mainly since sensationalist garbage is strengthened through the media’s Megaphone and is reinforced with large profits and audiences that watch it without reacting to it.
While on the other hand, the expansion of advertisement has also made people less aware and thoughtful but in different regards. “In Persuasion Nation,” uses various short stories that connect at the end to make a point about advertisements. The story of the orange being beaten by a “Slap-of-Wack bar,” that claims to have all the fiber, vitamin C and fat of an orange shows how lies propagated by companies can alter the truth, and make the consumer less knowledgeable about what they are eating. The story of the apathetic child eating “Mac Attack Mac&Cheese,” while his grandma dies, and the Grandparents hurting a young man for simply not liking Doritos represent how detached people have become from each other and how attached people have become to products such as Doritos.
Both pieces end with a realization of the solution to the problems presented in these pieces. At the end of “In Persuasion Nation,” the polar bear realizes that the green symbol that was once a “Slap-of-Wack bar” is a “false GOD,” and if everyone realized that then it would strip the green symbol of its power over them, unfortunately, the penguins that hear the polar bear’s message, ignore him as a heretic and continue to enjoy corporate food by divulging on some Skittles that were once their eggs. While at the end of “the Braindead Megaphone,” Saunders prescribes an antidote to the media’s failings, he tells us to realize that we contribute to the problem and to “Turn that Megaphone down, and insist that what’s said through it be as precise, intelligent, and humane as possible.”
George Sanders proves to possess the ability to convey his analysis of the world through the use of fiction and nonfiction. His fictional approach, “In Persuasion Nation,” proves to be very entertaining while hammering home an important message to the reader regarding accountability and personal thought. The nonfictional passage, “The Braindead Megaphone,” discusses a similar topic, but takes a different approach. Both passages are similar in how Sanders chooses to structure them. Sanders begins both passages with a seemingly unclear idea as to where the passage is heading. “In Persuasion Nation” begins with several very funny short chapters that all converge later in the passage. When the reader begins, they’re very unsure of what each of these events have to do with each other. Slowly, as the story progresses, connections are made clear. Similarly, in “The Braindead Megaphone,” there’s an abrupt start that describes a character with a megaphone in a room and how those listening to that character have progressing thoughts. Neither passage begins with context. Instead, both begin with seemingly random examples that later come together to form Sanders’ argument. In both passages, the structure of starting rather unclearly and coming to a concise point by the end is exhibited. Another similarity between the passages is the message revealed at the end of the passages. Sanders beliefs are more clearly present in the nonfiction passage than in the fictional one, but both do in fact share similar points regarding how easy it is in a consumer society for profit to become more important than truth. Sanders uses the polar bear at the end of “In Persuasion Nation” to express to readers how easy it is to get caught up listening to “false Gods.” It was so easy for the characters of “In Persuasion Nation” to get wrapped up in the belief that this green symbol was a God. The characters began to repeatedly perform tasks that they detested because they were told by this false God that this is what is supposed to be done. The polar bear’s epiphany in the end relates to us in the human world and relays a message that we are to be vigilant about who and what we look to as our leaders in life, religion, etc. because despite how someone may appear, they can often be very deceiving. We can’t allow certain influences to prevent us from using our brains to think clearly. More thought is required in order for us to make intelligent decisions. A similar message is conveyed in “The Braindead Megaphone.” The message is relayed more directly by Sanders. He explicitly states we must be aware of what is being told to us and use logic and our ability to questions things around us in order to fight misinformation and prevent us from becoming or remaining “braindead” to the megaphonic tendencies. Profit and money can only come in place of truth if we allow them to, and as a society, we have the power to decide what the most important tenets are to us as a whole.
The readings “In Persuasion Nation” and “Braindead Megaphone” by George Saunders were very intriguing and unlike things that I have read for school before. I read “In Persuasion Nation” first and the concept that I took from it was about the power of words and images to influence us and our thoughts. It does take the examples to the extreme, describing a grandfather witnessing his grandson being decapitated by a bag of Doritos. The reason the bag of Doritos does this is because the young man questioned the bag about who he was causing his grandparents to feud over it. My understanding of the green symbol in, “In Persuasion Nation” was the concept of money. Everyone was looking at it as a God until the polar bear is falling off the cliff and realizes that the symbol is no God, but rather “a false God, obsessed with violence and domination. Money makes people do crazy things and people are oftentimes more loyal to their profit than they are to their workers. This is the picture I think George Saunders was trying to highlight, that consumerism has shifted to the negative extent.
This concept of money being superior to everything continues in the “Braindead Megaphone.” In it Saunders asks an informant if asking “tell us the truth” is different from “making money while telling us the truth.” Of course they are different, and this is what Saunders wants us to take away from this. He wants us to realize that the bottom line is influencing everything, especially the media. The media is creating extravagant stories and making them even more extravagant in order to bring in the revenue. They are not producing the news that the viewers want or need in order to know what is going on, but rather they are being forced fed whatever the corporations are telling them they want to know.
Both “In Persuasion Nation” and “Braindead Megaphone” by George Saunders reflect on the media’s ability to create an “intelligence ceiling.” In the non-fiction piece—“Braindead Megaphone”— the dominance of the megaphone wielder manages to control the conversation and in effect limit the thoughts of the rest of the partyers. The vague, “In Persuasion Nation” portrays a similar idea through the grotesque images and the absurd voice over that attempts to downplay the violence through quirky remarks. The green symbol mirrors the megaphone guy, when he drowns out the polar bear’s thoughts and crushes the rebellion led by the other characters. Both dominating voices work to dumb- down the audience. The underlying ideas in both works is similar to that of Orwell’s 1984. Orwell’s dystopian government uses a form of English known as Newspeak to maintain control over the citizens. They too use television programming to not only keep tabs on people but also to influence the thoughts of others. The society illustrated in the book is encouraged to express violence against the people they are at war with. They do despicable things, but similar to the voice over, the violence is quickly justified with an unthoughtful argument.
Saunders’ work differs from Orwell’s, in that it has an emphasis on consumerism. Though both of Saunders’ pieces are vastly different, there is an obvious parallel on the impact consumerism has on society. Saunders implies that the media is necessary to promote consumerism and consumerism is necessary to give the media a purpose. He explores the difference between simply telling facts and crafting a story with the facts. Unfortunately, you cannot sell facts and need to come up with a story to make the facts more presentable. This is obvious through both pieces. In “In Persuasion Nation”, the advertisements described have outrageous stories designed to make the product more appealing. In “Braindead Megaphone” he talks about how the media needs to make stories more appealing to keep viewers tuned in, citing examples like OJ Simpson, Monica-Lewinsky and 9/11. Although unclear at first Saunders non-fiction piece “Braindead Megaphone” seems to compliment the outlandish story of “In Persuasion Nation.”
I found the concept of marketing to be an interesting connection between both of Saunders pieces. The comical way he toys with the idea of advertisements in “In Persuasion Nation” calls into question the intention and way in which an advertisement is communicated and presented to the viewer.Saunders juxtaposed morbid and philosophical events such as death and the existential quest for higher meaning and attempting to understand the concept of God with random inanimate objects and people with nonsensical ideas and purposes. This mocked the way that humans market products, messages, and lifestyles to each other via catchy slogans or played out scenes or “vignettes” as Saunders referred to them that are meant to be relatable and make something desirable. Saunders ideas in communication mentioned in “The Braindead Megaphone” are subject in the same way that a product like a bag of Doritos or the GrandeChickenBoatCombo are marketed using certain calculated language, imagery, psychological messages and motives to attain a desired result. Rather than to get a customer to purchase a particular product like a Twinkie the ideas Saunders mentions in “The Briandead Megaphone” deal with a different manner of marketing in contemporary culture, but marketing all the same. The same way Saunders explores news outlets ulterior intentions and level of information and truth and how these factors are manipulated and presented the nutrition facts on a Slap-of-Wack bar are fabricated and made to look like something they are not in order to pass along a message to the consumer and derive a particular reaction and outcome.
In “The Braindead Megaphone” by George Saunders, Saunders describes scenarios on how people today have become followers rather than leaders. For example, Saunders described the man with the microphone as “…not the smartest person at the party, or the most experienced, or the most articulate.” This man lacks all the qualities of a great speaker, but he was able to gain the attention of all those who are smarter, more experienced, and more articulate. People have become more simple-minded as seen in how easily they can be strung along in certain instances. The same thing happened with the man in the house. His ideas are being formed by someone else. People do not think for themselves anymore. They do not have their own thoughts, actions, or opinions. In a way, stupidity can be dominate given these circumstances. People have slowly become more dependent on others rather than independent.
In “In Persuasive Nation”, Saunders addresses something similar, but narrowing it down to the world of media and advertisement. The advertisements he mentioned in this piece are completely grotesque with very rapid changes in mood. These types of ads expect to grab the attention of the consumer and have them feel the same mood changes the ads portrays just to make the consumers feel they have a connection to the product. The consumer may not be able to see the underlying truths in these adverts and thus the true truth is lost in the void. The media is able to keep such things buried, further tricking the simple-minded consumer. The media is able to take advantage of how uninformed people are becoming.
Both pieces show how the truth can be hidden and even erased due to the lack of a powerful individual voice. People do not have control as much as they think they do; there is always an underlying force that influences their ideas and actions. These people do not actively seek out the truth and this causes them to be manipulated by big corporations such as the media. Saunders directly brings these issues to life in “The Braindead Megaphone” while as alluding to it in “In Persuasive Nation”. Things are not always what they seem to be, but most people are too clueless to realize this.
In the passage “Braindead Megaphone” and the short story “In Persuasion Nation,” George Saunders is critiquing modern peoples’ susceptibility to being brainwashed or having their thoughts and actions influenced. In “Braindead Megaphone,” Saunders is directly exposing the phenomena of how people in power can influence the ideas of an entire society simply by being loud. He explains how the media or people in power can continuously refer to minuscule or ridiculous situations and treat them as significant, and with enough repetition the public will see these situations as significant. He further explains that the people in charge of this snowball of stupidity are actually very intelligent, but do this because of the profit motive because peoples’ minds are easy to influence. In the short story “In Persuasion Nation,” Saunders satirizes the consumer market. The humorous and ridiculous series of stories is meant to represent product advertisement, where commercials for many products today are silly but effective in influencing the general public. This is again driven by profit motive. In addition, Saunders’ writing style is very consistent in the two stories and easily recognizable. He follows an “inverted pyramid” structure, where he begins with a seemingly random anecdote but develops into a passage where the intended moral is very clear, and everything fits together very well like a puzzle. It is evident that there are very apparent similarities between the two works by George Saunders.
To start I am totally blown away by the writing of George Saunders, the writing of both pieces is incredibly captivating. It seems to meet that the abstractness of both pieces corollate to capture the attention of the reader. I grew up reading many stories like “In Persuasion Nation” in their bizarre manner of depicting a moral conundrum. The stories always seemed almost more realistic than their fairy tale counterparts which I could never read without brief passages of nausea. The most intriguing aspect of the short stories was always their sense of truth which often expressed through a pessimistic plot, strong Irony and at times a more Cynical narration carried tonnes of the world I saw around me. With that in mind, I couldn’t help but find myself lost in the hypothetical of the “Megaphone-guy”, enamored by this image portrayed of a man who seems almost unique and yet reminiscent of many figures I encounter daily. It may also be my once-upon-a-time dream of being a journalist that is drawn so close to the issues being addressed in “Braindead Megaphone”. Yet without a doubt in my mind, the writing and language and perhaps even the vulgarity of the two pieces serve as a mental alarm that what is being read is something out of the scope of normal writing. Quite possibly the two pieces can respectfully be seen as almost comic, in that they are written in almost an outlandish way and yet they are eloquent and precise, captivating and direct, they are everything today’s journalism and advertising is not. I write this reflection realizing that the two pieces seem almost totally bizarre because I am accustomed, in part, to bad or at least “boring” writing.
In the first passage we had many random scenarios and the first was about a man with a megaphone man. The man with the megaphone interrupts a gathering in a room with his megaphone. He starts to speaks out his opinions about spring mornings, or what side of the room is preferable. He influences the guest and causes them to become reactors to what he says. Later in the passage his words become more outrageous and unintelligent. He yet still has the influence.
Another scenario was about obtaining information accurately or obscure through a window. A debate whether to receive information and understanding or responding to the call without any grasp of the situation.
Lastly what I found most interesting was the news reporter reporting on dog crap in a bowl.
The second passage was very random. The reading had multiple influential figures. Some may have been food or a geometrical shape. The ones that stuck out at me was the dorito loving grandparents who would sacrifice their bodies and others for a bag of doritos. Another would be the macattack snack the grandson paid high attention to and letting his Grammy die.
How do these stories intersect on the concepts of influence?
Well, we see that the megaphone man was influential due to his loud voice. We see that he is not using his intelligence to influence people but his own loudness to do it. He becomes very obscure when he continues to speak but since he has his megaphone he is able to draw a crown. The obtaining of information can be helpful but also be a hindrance. The situation that was given had a drawback. We learn that in the situation we won’t be able to comeback. Learning that piece of information influences us to take the risk or retreat. The news reporter reporting on dog crap in a bowl. The topic wasn’t appealing but how someone takes on the idea of that topic can draw in viewers and influence them to watch.
The second passage, we see from the two examples. We find that commercialism of food or technology can influence individuals to do rash decisions. The influences that we see today come from that. The symbolism of the megaphone man can the be the thoughts on the social media. Another symbolism is the dog crap on news, the crap represents the information being served to the public.