Week 6, Column 6: SOAPSTone
Advice of 'Princeton Mom' reveals a mother talking to herself
Speaker:
Meghan Daum. Daum is widely known in the press to uncover the most intricate of stories in the world of celebrities and popstars, as demonstrated in her last article about Alec Baldwin. In her latest article, Daum takes on a new type of story: offensive and obnoxious. She reflects on the old and new accounts of one of the Internet's most famous feminists. |
Occasion:
March 13th, 2014, posted on the LATimes website. The larger occasion, which Daum believes everyone is already aware of, is that "the Princeton Mom," Susan Patton, has written an impractical, 200-plus page version of a letter she calls a book. The immediate occasion, however, is that the lousy elitist made a pariah of herself when she exhorted marriage-minded college women not to graduate without securing future husbands along with their diplomas. |
Audience:
It is easy to grasp that Daum is antagonized by Patton's doings, and wants to express that with those who are interested in listening. With that being said, Daum's writing is aimed mostly towards those who already enjoy reading her columns or who already find Susan Patton as unappealing as she does. The writing is also aimed towards an informed audience: people who have and understand all of the facts before them. These people do not necessarily favor Daum over Patton, or vice versa, but are optimistic, giving Daum the opportunity to appeal to them. Daum stated, "maybe this time we'd be wise not to fall for it. Some battles just aren't worth fighting," revealing the type of audience she was aiming toward. |
Purpose:
As represented in all of her columns, Meghan Daum’s purposes are never personal. Her purpose in this article is to familiarize the world with Susan Patton in support of her believe that The Princeton mom is turning into Internet hate bait once again, but also to warn them not to fall for it. The author appeals to her audience's logos and ethos by spilling out all facts upon facts of information on Patton that she knows will stir her audience's emotions as well. |
Subject:
The subject of Meghan Daum’s article is not only the snobbery of Susan Patton, but Patton herself. Daum elaborates on the lousy elitist's most famous "fail" at attempting to exhort women of marrying at an early age by mentioning Patton's new yet useless book in which she inveighed against female students who were too busy thinking about their studies and their careers to look for future husbands among their classmates. Daum supports herself with quotes from Patton's book. |
Tone:
Daum displays an absurd tone towards Patton through her disappointment in Patton, but she evokes a critical tone towards her audience with her constant reminders to the audience of Patton's actions. Through her tone, Daum relays facts and her own opinions and thoughts to the audience and clearly executes her argument while giving the impression that Susan Patton, as expected, is about to find herself in a sea of hate again, and she is the bait. |
Highlight of the Week: Speaker
After six weeks of analyzing this writer through SAOPSTone, it is more than apparent that Meghan Daum has her own unique style of writing. It is detailed and informative right down to the bone but is also enjoyable and humorous. Daum’s tone and voice vary depending on what topic she is writing about. It can be even tempered like in her article “To Thine Own Selfie Be True – Literally” or incredibly emotional like in “Covering (up) Lena Dunham.” Because Daum does not stick to one type of emotion in every column, she portrays herself as more relatable and honest. Daum enjoys rallying her audience around to motivate them instead of making them feel guilty. She feels that both tactics are strong and successful, but motivating an audience to participate in or believe in something has a longer lasting effect and leaks over into those who are not a part of her audience as well. Daum uses both personal experience and logic as evidence, but relies more on logic. Her work is proof that using facts that cannot be denied contain more power in pulling any audience towards what you believe, and should be the first type of evidence you add to your writing. The personal experience should be left for appealing to emotion and making yourself more relatable, as Daum exhibits in everything the writes. But even those who have not analyzed this writer for six weeks are able to determine, with a few key facts, what type of speaker Daum is. Just by reading Daum's article headlines, anyone can identify the pattern in her writing. She is naturally drawn toward foreign affairs and cultural/social issues, and she believes that because these issues are taking place everywhere and because everyone is either directly or indirectly affected by them, her columns are much more relatable and popular. Daum is a constant critic, and rarely ever will you find her defending American ideals, and while her audience may not always agree with her opinions and politics, Meghan Daum has all of the ethos she needs in order to be accurate and successful in her writing.