Briona Ely 
Todd Breijak 
ENG­1020 
22 September 2014 
                                                           The “Science Cat” 

    Throughout high school I had many friends who believed that science was a boring subject. I 
even had to agree that science did get boring at times. As I got older I realized that wasn’t the word for 
science. In fact, the word that I would use in contrast to boring is serious. Science is a fun, but serious 
subject. My friends still didn’t agree, and still believed that science was a boring subject. The “Science 
Cat” cleared the air for me. “Science Cat” is a genre of internet memes a little humor, life, and fun in the 
world of science. Basically “Science Cat” takes the seriousness, and boring out of science. 

    Lets start with the definition of a meme. A meme is an element of a culture or system of 
behavior that may be considered to be passed from one individual to another by monogenetic means, 
especially imitation. One particular type of meme, and the type of meme that I will be discussing is an 
Internet meme. An internet meme is an activity, concept, or piece of media, often as mimicry, from 
person to person via  Internet. Some internet memes are used to get a point across as well. Some are 
serious, and others are humorous. 
Once memes start to circulate, they also get categorized according to similarity, and same 
pictures. Internet memes are usually square pictures with words about the picture at the top and bottom 
of it. The words are usually a sarcastic joke or statement about the picture, or situation. For example, 
there is an internet meme out about LeBron James that basically makes a joke out of him being a ball 
hog. In that particular meme the same picture of LeBron James holding a ball is displayed with a 
sarcastic joke on it. 
    There are many genres of internet memes. There are also sub­genres of memes. A sub­genre is 
a small portion of a larger picture. For example, my internet meme that I chose is a sub­genre. Science 
is the genre, and “Science Cat” is the sub­genre. Sub­genres are very helpful in my opinion. All of the 
humor, and creativity is generated through sub­genre. 
    The meme that I chose is the best sub­genre of  the bigger genre that it came from. Science is 
the genre of internet memes that I chose to talk about. “Science Cat” is the sub­genre. I feel that this is 
the best sub­genre because it is humorous. If science is already a serious thing, I feel that the best way 
to make it fun, and understandable is through humor. “Science Cat”, as stated previously, is a way to 
take the seriousness out of science and still make sense. 

     The image above is the meme that I created according to my topic which was the “Science 
Cat”. In the picture you see a cat that has on a watch, glasses, and a tie. What the cat has on in the 
picture I important because you can’t just use any cat. The cat has too look smart, or like a “scientist”. 
The words on the picture is giving you a fact about science, but in a corny joke as scientist would. 

Project Two Rough Draft

Briona Response 4  

Project 3 Rough Draft Workshop

Briona Ely

ENG1020

Todd Breijak

Genre Critique

10 November 2014

Shampoo Commercials

    Commercials usually have the general purpose to inform, or persuade its audience about its product, or whatever it is being sold. In other words, the purpose is to advertise a product or service to an audience in the hope that they will buy from it. Commercials also promote, and sponsor television programs. They help pay salaries and the production costs of those programs. There are many types of commercials with many types of subgenres. For example there are informative commercials that are sad, like the Michigan Humane Society’s commercial. It of course is informing you about something like all commercials, but it used sad music with depressing looking animals. There are also informative commercials that are comical. For instance the new Lipton peach iced tea commercial, where the new tea is being promoted, but a delivery guy is singing in a soprano tone which makes it funny.

            There is a large variety of commercials like I stated previously, there are non-profit organization commercials, and food/drink commercials. There are also shampoo commercials. There are many types of shampoo brands, so that would simply mean that there are many shampoo commercials. There is Dove, Pantene, TRESemme, L’Oreal, Garnier, Herbal Essence, and many more. All of these brands have commercials. The general purpose behind shampoo commercials is to get its audience to buy that particular shampoo. For the most part, shampoo commercials are successful with their purpose just because they simply changed over time to respond to what its user’s want, which is Dynamism.

            Almost all shampoo commercials show some gorgeous person using the product, and when they are done they look even more stunning than they did before using the product. What is implied is that if you use that particular shampoo, that you and your hair will look, and feel great afterwards. They don’t tell you that the shampoo works differently according to hair type, they don’t tell you that some is not good for your hair, they only tell you the positive things which is a technique of persuasion.

            Shampoo commercials also use popular music, or uplifting music that is catchy. This is a way to capture the audience’s attention, and keep it. The music is also used to make you feel happy in some way. Knowing this shows how shampoo commercials are successful. They know that people have to wash their hair anyways, so they appeal to different things which in other words is situatedness.

Shampoo commercials appeal to discourse communities. Some shampoo commercials are for men, some for women. Appealing to different discourse communities is the biggest strength of shampoo commercials in my opinion, which in other words is community ownership. So when a shampoo commercials is trying to advertise shampoo for men they tend to use a nice looking, strong man, with healthy hair washing his hair and looking great while and after using the shampoo. This technique is great because other men will see this and automatically want it for themselves.  Shampoo commercials for women shampoo does the same thing, but instead a nice looking woman is showed using the shampoo, and her hair is flawless afterwards, and again all women want flawless hair.

Shampoo commercials not only show you what it is, and how it works, but it also shows you different situations in which shampoo should, and would be used and the purpose of why to use it. This is also known as form and content. If you didn’t know the purpose of a product, you wouldn’t see a purpose in buying it. Even though everyone knows why you would use shampoo, shampoo commercials illustrate it, and give more purposes.

In conclusion, shampoo commercials do an overall great job at persuading people to use, and buy a particular type of shampoo. I do believe they could be more successful if they use a variety of people in these commercials just to show accuracy because not everyone have the type of hair to use Pantene, or Herbal Essence. I also think that shampoo commercials would be more successful if they used more real life situations.

Briona Ely Project 3 reflection

Briona Ely project 4

Briona Ely Project Four reflection  

Response 6 Ebola