Literary Devices Used In The Onion

Humans all need something to laugh about in order to make life worth living. One area of humor is in the overstatement of advertisement of products sold on the market. It is the challenge of marketing experts to produce a creative image for a product. Sometimes the focus of the image of the product has more priority than the performance of the product. An article in, “The Onion,” the author satirizes how products are marketed to consumers through means of a variety of literary strategies such as words and phrases, dialogue, and scientific vocabulary.
First, the literary strategy of using words and phrases throughout the article to mock the long tradition of how marketing companies advertise their products. The product in this article is shoe inserts. For instance, the article refers to a new “cutting-edge form of pseudoscience known as Terranometry,” It mocks the marketing techniques using the term pseudoscience, which refers to the practice of presenting something as scientific when it is not. Then it continues with an
There are several examples of scientific terms throughout the article. An example is the description of how the Magna Soles is different from other insoles “ Magna Soles harness the power of magnetism to properly align the biomagnetic field around your foot.” Then there is the “patented Magna-Grid design which features more than 200 isometrically aligned Contour Points.” However, if that doesn’t convince a person to purchase these inserts than the author continues with more “reliable” scientific information such as, “the Magna Soles convert the wearer’s own energy to match the Earth’s natural vibrational rate of 32.805 kilofrankels.” Thus, the author makes the reader aware of how marketing companies sometimes tactfully employ scientific vocabulary about a product to sound professional and