Abigail Thorn's The Hidden Rules Of Modern Society

Abigail Thorn, creator of the YouTube channel, Philosophy Tube, creates videos that have to do with ethical dilemmas, social theories, and art. Among these videos is The Hidden Rules of Modern Society, which covers different theories such as the social contract theory, the sexual contract theory, and critical race theory. Thorn starts The Hidden Rules of Modern Society with the introduction of the social contract theory and then moves on to the next topic: The sexual contract theory. Lastly, Thorn ends the video with an explanation of critical race theory. Overall, Thorn explains each theory and then compares them with each other, mainly to further explain and analyze what exactly the theories are saying. Now, what makes Thorn’s video unique

Regarding comedy, this is a great example of pathos used by Thorn, which is used to appeal to the audience of the video. Along with pathos, two other rhetorical factors that contribute to Thorn’s purpose for making the video have to do with the medium and the context. With all these factors-pathos, medium, context, and genre-taken into consideration, it shows that Thorn wants to educate people in a simple manner that is easy to understand and entertaining.
As said before, The Hidden Rules of Modern Society, created by the channel Philosophy Tube, combines the genres of comedy and philosophy into one video. The use of comedy, for instance, is seen throughout the video in costumes and witty jokes. While the jokes that Thorn makes during her video aren’t exactly outrageous or in-your-face, they keep the audience entertained and make them want to keep watching. An example of this kind of witty

To be more specific, the philosophic topics chosen by Thorn, as they appear in the video are: ‘Social Contract Theory’, ‘Sexual Contract Theory’, and ‘Critical Race Theory’. All three of these theories are different types of philosophies that Thorn is successfully able to educate her audience by using comedy and an easy-to-understand script. By using information from all sorts of philosophers such as Hobbes, Rousseau, Pateman, Mills, and others, Thorn can present these theories in new, simple ways. Such as seen at 9:20 in The Hidden Rules of Modern Society, Thorn takes a quote from philosopher David Hume and then summarizes it in a way that is easy to understand. She takes the quote and sums it up into a simple sentence: “Social contract theory is meant to give us a nice test to evaluate the societies we do live in” (Philosophy Tube 9:40). This brief and straightforward summary of a long and complicated quote allows Thorn to educate a wider range of people. And this is what Thorn continues to do for most of the philosophers she cites in the YouTube video. So, even with the fact that The Hidden Rules of Modern Society focuses on somewhat complicated theories, Thorn’s use of simple summaries and phrases further communicates her goal of trying to educate her audience on different popular philosophical