Ad Hominem Fallacy Examples

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As television shows become increasingly complex, so do commercials. One of the tactics employed to keep viewers entertained are through the use of fallacies. For example, there are several commercials featuring the Ad Hominem fallacy, because of presidential and mayoral campaigns. Although one fallacy in particular called the slippery-slope fallacy, occurs in a recent DIRECTV commercial.
This DIRECTV commercial begins with the picture of an angry man on hold with his cable company. Using this slippery-slope fallacy, he goes from being angry on the phone to immediately playing racquet ball to relieve his stress. He then injures himself resulting in a trip to the hospital for an eyepatch. This eyepatch makes the man look tough, which leads …show more content…
They try to hook their audience by including viewers in a seemingly exclusive type of person. This tactic not only fails as a hook, but it also offends viewers by deeming them ill-tempered. The second point of this commercial is to sell the viewer on DIRECTV, through the slippery-slope fallacy. The series of events the man goes through during the commercial lead the viewer to believe that they will “wake up in a roadside ditch” if they do not get DIRECTV. This tactic does not work, because it doesn’t market the capabilities of the product, it only bullies viewers into buying DIRECTV.
While some will argue that the commercial is lighthearted and funny, it is important to remember that companies will use any means to get people to buy their product. They will generalize some in an effort to connect with a certain audience and will do the same with the other audience in a different commercial.
In the final analysis of the DIRECTV commercial, it can be concluded that they have used the slippery-slope fallacy very well. Although, they have created an excellent slippery-slope fallacy, it resulted in an insulted audience and a failure to sell their

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