Natalie Morgan

Partying is a good thing?

LETS PARTY!!!!!

Alcohol is fun right? It loosens the girls to talk more, and adds confidence to guys [N1]egos. This is what we have been hearing for as long as we have been in high school or even middle school. Alcohol isn’t a bad thing.

Now alcohol companies are coming out with adds [N2]that solidify the fact [N3]that drinking is a positive thing. So now our thought of drinking is more solidified[N4]! Great right?

Jose Cuervo is a very popular alcohol at any age, high school, college, and after college. They are one of the most common shots at bars, and it is used in many types of drinks. I recently looked up ads on this amazing Jose Cuervo and it made me want to go buy some just by looking at how they sell it. My roommate and I literally say when we see ads like this in magazines or on television, “SO if I drink that, will I have a hot body and really attractive friends with a smoking hot boy-toy to hang off of, because if so lets go get some”. Though we are partly kidding, the idea of having that good of a time is very appealing. And when we do give into those advertisements, it usually ends so terrible for one of us.

Come on, who wouldn’t want to buy this? When I see advertisements with a man in a swim suit at a beach with a gorgeous girl, it makes me think, “hm, I want to look that good in a swim suit hanging on a very attractive male!”[N5] This advertisement makes me want to buy this drink even though I do not drink tequila[N6].

I am not saying that drinking Jose Cuervo is bad, but from what I see there are more negative outcomes than positive[N7]. Something that Alcohol companies don’t take into consideration is the fact that their product does more bad than good. In the US there is 2,300 adolescents under the age of 21 getting DUI’s. (CDHS) For ages 21 to 25 there are on average 6,700 DUI’s. (CDHS) In the New York Times an article called Avoiding Drug and Alcohol Abuse, they talk about high schoolers driving home from parties that involve alcohol. It is becoming a bigger and bigger problem. (New York Times P.1)

Although these advertisements are interesting because yes, while it does show a very good time, positive people, and the people are usually attractive, people do not take into concideration the effects of alcohol and how that over weighs the good. These advertisements are not all wrong, they are just a little missleading. I do not think that every person in the world has an alcohol problem, but I feel like more people than not do, even if there is not violent involved. The Jose Quervo ads do put a lot of positive atributes on their logo, but very rarely do I see people drinking tequela make good, rashional decisions.

If you think about it, what benifits [N8]does alcohol have? Literally[N9], as any girl would say, it adds uncesserary calleries, a persons judgment is impaired regardless, and in sever cases, it can cause alcoholism, which not only affects the user, but everyone around them. Her are some numbers to show that alcohol is not the best way to kill time. 5% of all deaths from diseases of the circulatory system are attributed to alcohol. “15% of all deaths from diseases of the respiratory system are attributed to alcohol. 30% of all deaths from accidents caused by fire and flames are attributed to alcohol. 30% of all accidental drownings are attributed to alcohol. 30% of all suicides are attributed to alcohol. 40% of all deaths due to accidental falls are attributed to alcohol. 45% of all deaths in automobile accidents are attributed to alcohol. 60% of all homicides are attributed to alcohol.” (FAS)

Like I briefly stated before, it is not the fact that I am against alcohol, but it is obvious that alcohol causes more problems than not. Yes I do think that there are people who can just socially drink and not have a drinking problem, but that is becoming more and more rare. Here is one story that is shocking, “I’m 14 years-old right now, so you can only imagine how young I was when I started drinking alcohol and using drugs. I was 8 years-old when I had my first drink with my dad. He was going to jail the next day and thought it would be “one last hoorah” to get me drunk. From that point until I was 12, my drug of choice was alcohol. I had a certain negative perception of drug addicts, and therefore had no interest in doing drugs.” (Teen Stories, Cheyenee’s Story). This story explains itself. This is happening all over the United States, kids, adolescents, and irresponsible adults are getting their hands on this stuff and it is not causing positivitly to thier lives.

After seeing all these statistics and hearing some stories, what do you think the reasoning people are so attracted to alcohol for? The answer is, the way it is advertised. Think about it, what other reason would people be attracted to alcohol? It doesn’t taste good, and even if you think it does taste good, I know there are nonalcoholic drinks that everyone thinks tasts better. So it is not the taste. Yes sometimes the color of it is appealing, but still there are other nonalcoholic drinks that have a light blue color like Hypnotiq. Or a blended red look like margaritas. So think to yourself what is it that really honestly attracts you to alcohol, is it the taste, or is it the fun time you think everyone is having when you see people licking salt off their hand, throwing back a shot, and then putting a sliver of a lime in their mouth, then cheering as though they accomplished something. Man for me that is making me want to go out right now and start taking shots[N10].

Overall drinking is not a terrible thing to some people, but it does have more negative affects on people than positive. It is portrayed as it is shown on the ads that we see. We do not always see the after math of what alcohol does to a person. The Jose Quervo [N11]ads are a perfect example of what alcohol ads in general want to give off. Partying is nothing but a fun time and nothing can go wrong. Think to yourself, what empression do you get when you see Jose Quervo ads.

Work Cited

[N1]guys’

[N2]ads (because it’s short for advertisements)

[N3]Is it a fact? And is “solidify” the best word here?

[N4]Again, is this the right word?

[N5]This seems to just repeat what you already said in your prior paragraph.

[N6]Wait – I thought you said you did occasionally “give in” to these advertisements...

[N7]Having read your entire paper, I feel like the whole thing from here to the end is basically a paper about alcohol, when it should be a paper about the rhetoric used to advertise it. What messages are the ads sending? To what audiences? How do those audiences react and why? These are the questions you should be focusing on.

It looks like you haven’t got any scholarly sources in here – some sources are perfectly credible, like the New York Times and colorado.gov, but they aren’t scholarly. You’ll want to find at least one scholarly one for the next draft.

[N8]Lots of spelling errors here – did you run spell-check?

[N9]Careful with your use of this word.

[N10]Talking about your own experience and your own personal reaction to the ads is fine. But you’ll probably also want to gather evidence of other reactions to the ads, whether that’sin the form of online comments about the ads, or sales figures, or whatever.

[N11]Cuervo