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Looks Can Be Deceiving

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It’s a feeling that every man has at least once in his life. It’s a feeling of empowerment, like you can do no wrong. You get the girl of your dreams followed by the respect of your peers. You feel like you are on top of your game, like the world revolves around you. This is a great feeling to have, but one question remains. How do you get this feeling? In general a fallacy is error in reasoning. A fallacy is an argument in which the premises given for the conclusion do not provide the needed degree of support (“Description” 1).

Usually these fallacies go unnoticed because they play into our emotions. SLAM is a magazine geared toward a basketball-oriented audience. They run countless ads in their magazine for products that appeal to student athletes on every level. But there is this particular ad for a shoe ran by Lugz. Lugz are shoes worn for casual off the court uses. In this particular ad they have a hip-hop icon named Baby. Nicked named Birdman, Baby has a reputation for being an in-style flashy high roller. In this ad Baby appears to be sitting his high class office dressed in diamonds from head to toe.

He has his own logo which is a dove incrusted with diamonds mounted on his throne-like chair he’s sitting on with a globe next to him. And the slogan for this ad is “Never Fold. ” This ad is full of fallacies. Unfortunately consumers fall for these fallacies believing in false premises that play on their emotions and wants. The first fallacy that comes to mind about this ad is Post Hoc. Post Hoc basically means “after this, because of this” (“Post” 1). Post Hoc relates to this ad because you are lead to believe if you purchase this shoe you would be associated with people of Baby’s high class status.

This isn’t necessarily true because these shoes are not just exclusive for the rich, but for any consumer who has enough money to buy the shoe. This shoe ad is just based on how one wants to portray oneself to the public. Another fallacy is false dilemma. False dilemma is a fallacy in which a person uses a pattern of reasoning (“False” 1). False dilemma coincides with this ad because it creates false situation. If you buy these shoes you will have an unfair advantage in life. If you don’t have them your peers have an upper hand on you and you’ll be playing catch up.

Last time I checked sneakers you wear don’t give a distinct advantage in life. The last fallacy I see in this particular ad is appeal to emotion. Appeal to emotion is a fallacy that manipulates peoples’ emotions in order to get them to accept a claim as being true (“Appeal” 1). Someone who’s down on their luck and struggling with one’s confidence might see this ad. Right away this person sees this life style portrayed in this ad and thinks this is the life style for him. He knows he can’t get there over night but buying this particular shoe will turn him in the right direction.

As we all know shoes don’t create opportunities to better your life career wise. But this ad will prey on those whose confidence levels are low and vulnerable. Fallacies often create false expectations. They are misguided or dishonest uses of legitimate argumentative strategies (Hacker 506). Conscious consumers therefore need not feed into false advertisement and hasty generalizations that will manipulate us into debt. Let us not conform to society to portray ourselves as something we’re actually not, but each going their own route to success.

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