Kairos 18.2: Pepper, Classical Rhetoric up in Smoke

Cool Ethos in Practice: Info About Folks Who Don't Want to Provide Much Info

thetruth's site technically presents logical reasons for teens not to smoke. They clearly evoke pathos in the form of fear about what tobacco can do to your body. However, I suspect even thetruth's leaders would admit these are not their main persuasive tactics. thetruth is all about ethos, but not your Big Daddy A's ethos. They're not going to tell you who they really are, and they're not going to seek traditional credibility. They want to be cool. They're going to change your mind (maybe), but they're going to make you think you made that choice yourself.

Meet thetruth

Note: The organization "truth" is left uncapitalized throughout this text in keeping with their own styling.

thetruth is an anti-smoking advocacy group with roots in Florida's 1997 Tobacco Pilot Program (FTTP). An early version of the organization rose out of a landmark court case where the tobacco industry agreed to fund over 13 billion dollars to aid in preventing teen tobacco use over a 25-year period. One of the organization's first goals was to discover why previous anti-smoking campaigns had failed. The 70.2% of high school teens that had tried smoking seemed well aware of its dangerous effects; but according to studies, many teens still felt the act was linked to "rebellion and self-identifying" (Social Marketing Institute, 2008). How could the FTPP address this troubling contradiction? The Social Marketing Institute has lauded the FTPP's solution—a marketing campaign that speaks to teens in their own language while simultaneously attempting to "uncool" the idea of smoking itself. truth's television commercials (with their low-tech documentary style) portray the organization as a hip, underground, grassroots, and guerilla movement. Utilizing methods of street theater and flash mobs, their commercials have focused on public performances to shock passersby with the "truth" of big tobacco.

Although the commercials are the most public front of the campaign, truth's website reveals an even more complex strategy. Amongst its multimedia saturated pages, the website strives to be "cool" with every new click. In fact, the primary persuasive goal is to be so cool that the act of smoking can only seem uncool in comparison. Visitors to truth's website are preached to in a manner that strives incredibly hard to not be preachy (preaching = not cool). Visitors see a message of love that even extends to the smokers they're trying to change. Visitors might play some games or link the site into the various social media sites in their lives. They might watch a video about a professional yo–yo artist or catch up with legendary skater Tony Hawk. What visitors will not get are easily accessible facts about smoking or transparent autobiographic information about the organization itself (information their name might suggest would be forthcoming).

Obviously, the claim that truth's site is striving to be cool is a complicated one. I've already established competing definitions: from Dick Pountain and David Robins's (2000) focus on narcissism, ironic detachment, and hedonism; from Jeff Rice's (2007) focus on rhetorical practices of electronic environments; to Alan Liu's (2004) focus on the ethos of and against information. Although I will focus heavily on Liu considering my interest in the link between ethos and advocacy, all these theorists' definitions have a role to play in a robust analysis of the site (and, simultaneously, the function of cool).

At the outset, I want to mention thetruth's seemingly biggest challenge in any claim to cool. As my analysis will demonstrate, the site has no problem employing narcissism or detachment. Further, their interface is filled with examples of appropriation, juxtaposition, imagery, and other cool rhetorical practices (in the Rice (2007) sense). But hedonism? By attempting to curb teen smoking, they are taking on a hedonistically cool habit/tactic with a powerful history. The tobacco industry has long ago had their advertising possibilities limited. Characters on the major television networks are rarely seen smoking (though turn over to AMC's Mad Men for all the TV smoking you could want), and video games and Hollywood movies that glorify smoking are now often slapped with more restrictive ratings. Despite these limitations, I would argue that smoking is still a top media signifier to suggest a character is cool, rebellious, or edgy (perhaps only outdone by wearing all black). And even if a complex confluence of smoking bans and public health campaigns may have made smoking less popular (while sometimes turning actual smokers into pariahs), I don't think these cultural shifts have much affected smoking's signification of hedonistic rebellion. In fact, by turning smokers into cultural pariahs it's possible that the remaining smokers are more rebellious than ever before.

But smokers are not our culture's only rebels, and hedonism as a dedication to sensory pleasures is certainly not restricted to tobacco consumption. Thetruth.com replaces the hedonism and rebellion of smoking with its aforementioned emphasis on interests that seemingly have no relationship to smoking. Their music page has long focused on the Vans Warped Tour. As a skateboarding company, Vans provides the rebellious and youthful connotations associated with skateboarding, while the concert's tendency to book "punk" bands helps maintain that appealing edge of something that will probably piss off a teen's parents. Skateboarding makes another appearance in the site's sports section along with surfing, eating contests, and, yes, yo-yoing. Surfing videos continue the "extreme" and out of the mainstream appeal of skateboarding, while the celebration of excess on display in competitive eating offers hedonism of another variety. Yo-yoing? Well, set the video to some heavy metal riffs and I suppose it too looks pretty darn extreme. Finally, the video games, while offering nothing much beyond simple Flash-based distractions, manage to tap a hedonistic killing of time by their mere presence.

Occasionally have one of these punk band members mention how smoking isn't "cool," or create a speed typing game whose only connection to smoking is the time limit (6.5 seconds, since that's how often a person dies from a smoking related disease) and thetruth create just a tenuous enough connection to their subject matter to seem like a message based advocacy organization.

Truth's site technically presents logical reasons for teens not to smoke. They clearly evoke pathos in the form of fear about what tobacco can do to your body. However, I suspect even truth's leaders would admit these are not their main persuasive tactics. Thetruth.com is all about ethos, but not your Big Daddy A's ethos. They're not going to tell you who they really are, and they're not going to seek traditional credibility. They want to be cool. They're going to change your mind (maybe), but they're going to make you think you made that choice yourself.