The Power of a Smile

When I consider rhetoric as the art of persuasion in speech and writing, I tend to forget that there are other ways in which people could persuade others without any type of vocal modalities. And then I realized that one of the biggest ways I've been persuaded, is by a simple smile. People have said, smile to someone random, and it'll make their day, but I never realized just how life changing a smile truly was.

RIP A.F.

In this last month, I've learned so much more about the power of a smile that I had never considered before. One of my friends from elementary school, always had a smile on his face. Even though I hadn't talked to him in maybe years, I would see his facebook profile picture, and his smile, and he seemed to be a truly happy person. What I learned the hard way, was that a smile can be more than deceiving. A kid that always smiled, and further always seemed to want to make other people happy, hid so much pain beneath that smile. Over spring break, I found out that this friend took his own life, and it was a surprise to almost everyone. How could a person who grinned in every picture, constantly tried to cheer his mother up through her own sickness, and always joked around to make others smile, not see life worth living? I considered all the hurt and pain he must have held and kept to himself, and when I look back on his old pictures, the smile he carries tells such a different story. I believe that his smile was a comfort to those around him, and although he's gone, I know he no longer has to carry his pain. But I will forever look up into the sky, and imagine that beautiful smile looking down at all of us, his friends and family.

Recently I met this young lady who I thought was absolutely beautiful, she spoke with extreme confidence, and her jokes constantly had me at the edge of my seat. When she started to open up about her pain and past relationship that was filled with years of abuse, I immediately started to cry. What shocked me the most was that I had assumed by her appearance that this young lady was a happy and confident person, and I can't imagine the facade she put on to her loved ones and friends while she lived with such abuse. These last couple of weeks, have taught me so much about the assumptions we get from a simple smile. And when I think about how much we don't know or realize about the secrets and sadness beneath a smile, I question the ways we express ourselves to the people around us. Yet, I've learned the importance of truly getting to know someone, and making myself available just to listen if someone ever needed. 

How we share.

It is all apart of human nature to communicate through requesting things from others, informing others of information, and sharing with others. How we communicate in these aspects all functions to help us be like one another and to fit into our society. Through rhetorical persuasive means, as well as self or image presentation, we communicate these means in social climates. Now that we have such an advanced technological society and social networking systems, the ways in which we present how we want others to interpret our image is mostly done over sites like twitter, facebook, and now the most popular; instagram. As a society we have learned to advanced our businesses, social networks, and self presentation by how we express ourselves and share with others on sites like twitter and facebook. How you go about doing this and conducting yourself online helps gain you online followers who will support what you feel or say, as well as provide the most current and up to date news relevant between our social groups.

With instagram rising as another popular networking site, it allows people to express themselves through a different means; pictures alone. Although instagram is a iphone, and just recently, android phone application, its popularity is growing tremendously. Rather than talk to specific friends out of many on facebook, or give daily notifications of your day, we are using pictures to express the things that matter to us, as well as give our own self depiction of how people view us individually. Even though we all can't be photographers, instragram allows us to edit the picture quality, and stature, making them just as we want them to be seen. Some argue that instagram is just a place where, "average people can pretend to be photographers" or "people just post pictures of themselves". Yet, there are so many more that argue that the pictures represent peoples perceptions and what makes them who they are. Even further, with pictures,   others can see their own interpretation of what makes a photograph beautiful and take on a bigger perception of our world and world views.

Common Ground

In my anthropology class we have been learning about the origins and evolutions of human communication. In our small discussion group, I always found that there was such a great ease to our conversations on facial discussions and gestures. Without really knowing each other, we all shared common knowledge about the ways we communicate, and especially through networking sites, we found that we communicate in similar ways. In this class, we learned about the definition of common ground, in which we share ideas about the norms of people's behaviors and appearances. Societal common ground might involve holding a door open for someone, and rather than question why someone would hold a door open for us, shared common ground teaches us that this is a polite gesture, and normative to our society. Common ground can even be personal, something shared between two people or more that are close you. For instance, if I guided my friends attention to my textbook through a pointing gesture, through shared experiences that friend could easily interpret my meaning. For that close friend we could have already complained about the length of our reading, and so with a simple point they would interpret that easily. While if one was to point to that book without having a shared experience with another person, it can be interpreted in multiple ways, and the person might have to guess if you were discussing maybe needing that book, not liking it, or anything else. 

I started to think deeper about common ground, and how much more it is effective when considering rhetoric and the art of persuasion. Then I recognized rhetoric under this manner in social networking sites like twitter. Often we re-tweet comments that are interesting and cool, and personally I re-tweet things that I have a shared experiences on. One of my favorite tweeter to follow is @autocorrects, in which through rhetoric i am persuaded to check and follow its tweets because of its ability to tweet things that I feel are common to me. A lot of time I barely recognize daily habits that I have and share with others, but when people tweet about things I've experienced, I feel a closer connection to that person, and an even bigger assimilation to the people of my society. One of my favorite hash tags on tweeter are "#thatawkwardmomentwhen..." and it goes on to describe a couple of these moments. Most times I laugh at how much I realize I share in those awkward experiences, and it all falls into that common ground we hold as humans, and individuals in our particular societies and cultures.

What we Appeal to.

When I think of pathos, and its appeal to emotions, this can be visibly seen in how we relate, as well as feel a sense of comfort to many things in the world. As a young adult of a diverse culture, and background, I'm also diverse in the music I listen to as well as movies, t.v. shows, and books I read. What I've noticed about myself, is that I tend to read books of a specific genre, watch romantic movies over horror ones, and listen to rhythm and blues beyond anything else. What I've realized is although I'm very diverse in the things i do and or like, It is the ways in which they appeal to me as an individual that I'm more likely to find interest in the subject. As an American teenager, listening to hip hop of my generation is appealing to me because I can understand the lingo of the subjects, and the messages in the songs that are current to my age group. For my parents and grandparents they aren't able to appeal to it in the same manner because their interest and emotions show a greater connection to music of their own time. I would consider my music generation that of a "party" generation, so most songs relate to such and can be found more entertaining by my group of peers. While on the other hand, songs about peace and equality might be more affective and appealing to the emotions of my elders who lived in a time where they had to struggle through such barriers.

One of the most interesting things, beyond the cohort between generations, is the differences of appeal amongst cultures. Born and raised in America, there is a certain comedy to things that we understand or appeal to that other cultures fail to acknowledge in the same ways we do. Also being of Jamaican ancestry, we have our own sort of ideas of how we respond and represent our country, so I'm able to see as a child of Jamaican parents the appeals to this culture of people as well. When we consider music speaking on living in the "ghetto" or not having a successful life, a lot more Jamaicans and or Caribbeans can find this sort of music more appealing than maybe some parts of prosperous places in the US that would lack that sort of appeal. Still, when appeals to emotions through pathos are more general, we get a greater audience of acknowledgement. One example from both of my Jamaican and American culture, is the the music of Bob Marely. Bob Marely is known all around the world for his songs of inspiration on freedom, and non-violence. Peace is something many cultures struggle with, and especially in the time that Bob Marely was performing such songs, he pulled in such a grand and worldwide amount of fans. Everyone could understand the necessity and or desire for peace, so such an appeal was able to impact people of all ages, backgrounds, and ethnicity's. While to this day, Bob Marely's music still speak volumes to important issues, the technique he uses to appeal a variety of audiences to his music is still such an amazing event to this day. Other artists like Michael Jackson has had the ability to make general and worldwide appeals in cultures that many not even speak english, and this just goes to show the power pathos has amongst cultures and groups of many people.