This is the first time that I didn’t get an aneurysm after reading Eyman, though it could be because this was a short piece. That being said, Eyman’s (short) piece discusses about how special visual rhetoric is. What I believe is that visual rhetoric is just part of the bigger picture, that being digital rhetoric. Even though it existed way before digital, visual rhetoric’s abilities has been absorbed by digital- making it obsolete now. Think of it as visual walked so digital could run, but digital didn’t just ran- it stole everything.
Let’s talk about Peralada!
The only striking feature that visual rhetoric can provide is “the gaze”. We could talk about “the gaze” but I can bet all my money that every other blogger has talked about it. However, the gaze can arguably be part of digital rhetoric because it can also grab people’s attention and invoke thoughts. Instead, I want to use Peralada’s blog post as an example of why digital should replace visual. Peralada uses an analogy to explain their interpretation of visual rhetoric. What makes me chuckle though is their final sentence on the analogy, saying-
“The makers wanted you to feel these feelings, not SOLEY for your own personal pleasure. They wanted to persuade you into ultimately driving to Target and spending sixty plus dollars on a Lego set.”
Peralada 2024
This is the exact same purpose of digital rhetoric; it’s supposed to make the reader/audience feel the impact of the medium. There should be no reason to keep visual rhetoric if digital’s functionality is the copied version- but with more attributes. Still, my kind self is telling me that we shouldn’t get rid of it.
With that aside, I did enjoy reading Peralada’s post about this topic. And while I did complain about the Lego analogy as an example of “visual” rhetoric, it was fun to read in the end. I used to have a nice collection of them back when I was 12, too bad they were thrown away. I also love their last sentence, gives me some sort of inspiration.
“It is basic human instinct; We see, we think, and we ponder. It’s never ending and all around us, the world has us all under wraps”
Peralada 2024
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