Journal 2

While reading the Edbauer piece when it got to the “Keep Austin Weird” part it made me think of a form of rhetoric that the Chicago Cubs have been using for years, but recently caught on a national level. For years, not sure when it started, the Chicago Cubs have flown a white flag with a blue “W” on it after every game they win. For most of the team’s history they have lost more games then they’ve won so it never got much attention outside of Chicago. Over the past two seasons the Cubs have been the best team in baseball and have won more than any other team. With that there “W” flag got a lot of attention and became extremely popular among baseball fans across the country. In the 2015 season the Cubs created the hash tag, “#FlyTheW” and it has taken off.  This flag had an audience of Cubs fans, it requires the Cubs to win a game for it to be flow, but when they lose you can’t fly the flag: which is a constraint.

            Another form of rhetoric that is popular in pop culture right now is Chance The Rapper’s “3” logo. Since the release of his mixtape Coloring Book in May his “3” logo has been everywhere where music seems to come up. He references this “3” in his songs lyrics, is always wearing a hat with the “3” logo, there have been shirts, posters, stickers, and much more things made that have this logo. The “3” represents what Chance The Rapper stands for, which is freedom and expression. No it’s not quite as big as the whole “Keep Austin Weird campaign, but it has become a very popular thing in pop culture and especially in hip hop music.

            There were many similarities with the Edbauer and Bitzer piece about rhetoric. I enjoyed reading the Edbauer piece much, much more. Bitzer seems to be a bit stricter with his definition of rhetoric with no exceptions, whereas Edbauer is looser with the definition and sees it as something that can be altered or changed depending on the situation of the “rhetoric” itself.