The Onion Argument Analysis

Since a young age, people are taught “If it’s too good to be true, it is--,” but it seems only a few remember this important life lesson. Ikea, Costco, Taco Bell, and Amazon -- all an app away. The common goal for these major companies is to lure their customers into believing they are getting the best deals for the price, but instead it is nothing but an empty taco shell with a batter of beans and fake meat. In the mock press release The Revolutionary New Insoles Combine Five Forms of Pseudoscience, the news satire organization The Onion campaigns their innovative and revolutionary new product: MagnaSoles shoe inserts. Creating the fictitious MagnaSoles as a model, the article humorously mocks the strategies of modern product advertisement

The article mentions the process of developing a pseudoscience called “Terranometry” to match the wearer’s energy to “the Earth’s natural vibrational rate of 32.805 kilofrankels” (47- 48). This sentence is filled with scientific vocabulary that an average consumer will not understand and realize that “kilofrankels” is intentionally fabricated. Words such as “vibrational rate” and an answer to an impossible 4th grade long division problem, “32.805,” supports the satire of consumers believing the idea that MagnaSoles were developed by highly intelligent superhumans that did their homework. Even the sentence as a whole provides no relevance to the functionality of the insole model itself, and has no evidence to support the physical science the product claims. Through creating exaggerated false diction, the consumers become aware of the same methods corporations use in making them think that a piece of molded foam can achieve the same tasks as a computer at NASA. The Onion satirically reflects consumers’ idea of believing the practicality of a product just because it is explained through credible sounding

The article presents the price of the MagnaSoles at “$19.95 insoles [that] are already proving popular among consumers… [instead of] expensive effective forms of traditional medicine” (52- 55). The price of $19.95 is used to mock the consumer’s thinking that quantity is better than quality. If the MagnaSoles is capable of doing everything it claims to do, then why are companies like Boeing not out of business? The Onion displays ignorance in the consumer 's main attraction towards the price. With the lead in attraction of the low price, the author is able to claim the statement of MagnaSoles being better than “expensive effective forms of traditional medicine” immediately after. This following phrase makes the consumers focus on the word “expensive,” and convinces them to think that quality -- traditional medicine -- is inferior than the cheap quantity of MagnaSoles. By juxtaposing cheap against expensive prices, The Onion demonstrates to the consumers of how corporations take advantage of their single factored