Read the passage here:
The Onion is a publication devoted to humor and satire. In 1999 there was an article printed in The Onion about MagnaSoles. MagnaSoles is a supposed new and revolutionary product to help heal not only your feet, but your entire body. The diction used in this article helps satirize how products are advertized quite efficiently.
The tone of this article is that of an infomercial. There are testimonies from doctors, scientists, and even consumers of the product. You can almost hear Billy Mays in the background promoting this product with utmost enthusiasm, such as his Oxiclean commercials. It presents and explains several forms of science used to create a product that could, evidently, remarkably heal an individual with a spine that is out of line! To any ditz thumbing through a magazine, this article may seem realistic and the person could possibly even be tricked into believing this was serious or maybe even into purchasing these miracle healing insoles! If the reader were to pay close attention to the diction of the paragraph they would see that this article is nothing but a mockery of advertisements of this sort.
The obvious mockery begins in the introductory paragraph. The author states that the MagnaSoles use “no fewer than five forms of pseudoscience.” The prefix “pseudo”, in the Webster’s New World Dictionary, is defined as being false, a sham, or counterfeit. The addition of a simple prefix at the end of the paragraph sets the satirical mood. The passage goes on to explain the few forms of “pseudoscience” used in creating these magical MagnaSoles.
Describing a scientific technique called reflexology as being semi-plausible, and filing terranometry under the pseudoscience category obviously states that these techniques are not to be trusted. If the author did not point out that it was semi-plausible or somewhat false, some readers would be convinced that these techniques were the top new scientific techniques out there, and that there was no room for doubt!
The author uses what he refers to as “scientific-sounding literature” to emphasize the fact that products such as these can be described in such a way that it sounds extremely scientific and believable, even though the reader has no idea what any of the terms mean. For example: “[…]special resonator nodules implanted at key spots in the MagnaSoles convert the wearer’s own energy to match the Earth’s natural vibrational rate of 32.705 kilofrankels. The resultant harmonic energy field rearranges the foot’s naturally occurring atoms, converting the pain-nuclei into pleasing comfortrons.” The words “kilofrankels,” “pain-nuclei,” and “comfortrons” are not used anywhere in the human language. Using made-up words such as these emphasizes that advertisements will go to any extreme to promote a product with “scientific” evidence because it is automatically more believable.
The testimonies that are provided in the article would attract any gullible human being. One seems to speak of the healing powers of these MagnaSoles almost in comparison to the healing powers of Jesus in the bible. A man’s testimony states that instead of getting his spine realigned for thousands of dollars, he simply paid $20 for MagnaSoles and they have done an almost equivalent job. Another testimony states that a woman who had twisted her ankle wore the insoles for seven weeks and they healed her. Her ankle would have healed whether she was wearing these insoles or not. Many readers would not pick up on this while reading, but the average recovery time for a twisted ankle is four to six weeks. Therefore, the fact that she was wearing the insoles is completely irrelevant. This also backs up that advertisers seem to lie about almost anything to make a little bit of cash.
The overall satirical impact of the passage is effective in showing that these advertisements are ridiculous and overdramatic. The scientific-sounding jargon, pseudoscientific techniques, and over the top testimonies almost make it impossible to believe anything that these people claim that MagnaSoles do. While normal advertisements would not be this over embellished, they are not far from it and this article does a good job at making this fact a bit more obvious.
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