RCL #10: Visual Rhetoric

For my example of visual rhetoric, I chose this image of a naked baby covered with stamps of various companies, media forms, and brands of products. This image in my opinion was very powerful, and without saying a word, was able to convey a very powerful message. This image suggests that as a society, we have all  yielded to the immense power and influence of consumerism and capitalism. We eat, breathe, sleep, and drink consumerism and crave the ability to buy services and goods we desire. We are a generation that is driven by entertainment and the need to be satisfied and well informed with current information. As displayed in the ad, the baby is branded with companies such as Starbucks, McDonalds, CocaCola, Nike and many more. This suggests that even from birth as we are handed from the doctor’s hands into those of our parents/guardians, that we are immersed into a world where companies will be competing to gain our money and attention. We cannot escape the need to purchase items because it is everywhere. The commercials we are bombarded with on television, the music we listen to, and the celebrities that we admire all send us messages that encourage us to spend on our money to fuel capitalism.