2 October 2016 Rhetorical Analysis "Name A More Iconic Duo/Trio. I'll Wait"

The past week or so on Twitter has fostered a new meme that has circulated itself through all genres of social media humor—it’s two pictures featuring two different selections of the Kardashian/Jenner dynasty, coupled with the captions “Name a more iconic duo. I’ll wait.”/”Name a more iconic trio. I’ll wait.” The Twitter user who originally posted the first (“Name a more iconic duo”) has since made her account private in order to fight backlash. This backlash has been found most commonly in response tweets containing memes, photos of countless other dynamic duos, and tweets frantically attempting to produce humor that has not yet been covered. It’s been a whirlwind of posts—an experience overwhelmingly typical of Twitter.

            Upon seeing these tweets for the first time, I found myself curious about the importance of backlash to a post like this—it certainly wasn’t covered by the Kardashians/Jenners themselves, so what is the importance of the entire thing in the first place?

            I’m not a person who frequents Twitter and lets the 140 character posts permeate my life, but it is in instances involving the Kardashians that I always find myself somewhat fascinated. They have built quite an empire for themselves as a family, and so it is always interesting to me the power that they yield to respond or ignore occurrences involving their name in the media. It makes me wonder about the entertainment genre in general, and what will rise to be recognized by the wide public audience.

            So why this post? What about it, despite the fact that the Kardashians harbored almost no acknowledgement of it, allowed this post to gain its own special fame in the past days?

            To answer this question we must examine the post rhetorically. In a way, it’s a post that both does and does not acknowledge its audience—it’s something that guaranteed reaction simply because it mentioned characters familiar to almost everyone present in the social media setting. The fact that it takes an obviously “pro-Kardashian” stance only serves to facilitate the Twitter response; regardless of whether you are for or against the family, you know who they are and you feel a responsibility to state your opinion either by supporting or diminishing the post’s main point.  In addition, there doesn’t seem to be a point to the post; at least there doesn’t seem to be any more a point to it than to any other post on twitter. What was the author trying to accomplish? Probably to get herself a bit of the ever-elusive twitter fame, and to state her opinion on a topic always prevalent in the entertainment industry.

            The strategy of this tweet is probably the most strategic thing about it.  As mentioned before, the Kardashians are a buzzword; anytime their name is mentioned there is sure to be a response that is both positive and negative. The person responsible for this tweet was certainly aware that her post would gain recognition, it’s because of this that she probably posted it in the first place. However, she was surely surprised by the amount of recognition it gained, and it is due to the voice she adopted in the tweet that gave it so much attention. By phrasing her thoughts in a way that suggested clear support of the Kardashians, this young woman put herself on the side of an ultra-competitive debate around an extremely pertinent topic.

            At its core, this post falls under the realm of description in stasis theory. The tweet itself asked for a more “iconic” duo, therefore asking for a description the author believed nearly impossible to prove. However, the tweet inadvertently fell into the realm of jurisdiction; upon reading the tweet many people felt offended that one “nobody” on twitter would take it upon herself to label one group of people as “iconic”.

            Pathos and ethos were relied on most heavily in this text. The author certainly knew that she was entering a sticky subject by so obviously taking a side on the Kardashian debate. In addition, she knew that she would most likely get comments questioning her credibility to decide what duo is the most “iconic” to our society. However, she certainly did not expect the reaction that she did get.

            Overall, I think this post on Twitter was a perfect storm; and it is for this reason that it spread so far so quickly. Though it was not really much different from many other posts, it utilized just the right amount of rhetorical strategies (some inadvertently) to make it go so viral and become so pertinent to the entertainment industry this week.