A Half-HearTED Talk about a TED Talk

Since our summative is supposed to be presented in the form of a TED talk-esque thing, analyzing TED talks is rather important to success. The TED Talk I watched was called Pop Music Is Stuck on Repeat. The speaker, Colin Morris, is a data scientist and educator in Toronto with a Master's degree in Computational Linguistics. His background seems to give him that reliability factor -- that and the fact that he's doing a TED talk, something not the average Joe is given the opportunity to do.

Using his experience in computational linguistics, he acknowledges the fact that pop music is becoming more repetitive, but also argues that the stigma surrounding repetitive music is undeserved, and that repetitive music isn't worse than non-repetitive music, but perhaps even better. He uses computer science theories to analyze pop music, something that I would consider insane if it didn't convey his point and provide an image so effectively. He used bioinformatics and compression algorithms to show how much pop music can be reduced if the repetitive sections in songs were compressed into just the words that made them up. Fun fact: according to him, the most repetitive song can be compressed to just 3% of the original, and that song is "Around the World" by Daft Punk. Makes sense, since the song in literally just 3 words repeated over and over again.

"Around The World" by Daft Punk lyrics

As a speaker, he really effectively uses Logos in his argument. He uses what seems like pure, hard science to support his argument. To the average person like me, I have no idea what the human zinc finger transcription factor is, which is one of the things(?? like I don't even know. Is it a thing? Is it a tool? Who knows? Not me.) he used to analyze the songs, and I'm assuming his audience doesn't either, but hey, it sounds scientific and looks cool so it's probably legit. He also brings up things that we associate with intellect to support his argument, such as Shakespeare and Baroque musicians. He also has numbers, and explains Iambic Pentameter, and says a lot of smart things about his zinc finger thingy and compression algorithms and other smart-sounding things.

The zinc thing

Him being a seemingly reliable speaker, coming from his background and the fact that he's standing there doing a TED talk, which I have already mentioned, is not just an opportunity gifted to everyone, is really helping him in the Ethos department. The audience feels more inclined to listen to him, well, partially because he is standing and talking and the audience is sitting there for the sole purpose of listening, but also because they know that what he is arguing should be well thought out. He was also dressed casually - really casually- so the audience may have connected with him a little more and it could have made him seem more relatable.

Colin Morris

As for Pathos, he brought up a topic that most people have an opinion on, which is pop music as it is. For those who really enjoy repetitive music, he could easily have them nodding along with what he is saying as he is supporting their opinion and music taste (which some people are really defensive about). For those who don't appreciate repetitive pop music and find it lazy, well, there's the other two modes of persuasion to help him out. He is quite funny, but not in the loud kind of way, but the subtle, sharp, witty jokes that he makes when talking. In a presentation that seems to be really fact based with his zinc whatevers and compression gimmicks, it gives the audience little something to relate to and keep their interest.

The way he presents his information is interesting, since his topic is interesting. It is weird to see someone compare Britney Spear's Hit Me Baby, One More Time with Shakespeare, but he did it, and I gotta say it worked. Deep down, I think we know that there are similarities between the two, since music is just poetry with a beat, but we just don't really want to think about it like that. He found similarities between the two since they both utilized Iambic Pentameter, something we associate with Shakespeare, and not so much Britney Spears. The shock and intriguing factor of all his information really pulls the audience in - at least it did for me.

I would assume his audience to be of people from perhaps 20-50, all genders, since everyone listens to music. His target audience, I think, would be around that age range since the 50 year old's would still maybe be aware and hear pop music while the younger 20-year old's would be old enough to realize the increasing repetitiveness of music. Older generations would probably be the ones more skeptical of pop music, and, as he is trying to convince us that repetitive music is not bad, those people are probably the ones he is aiming for. With the way the talk is filmed, there is not instance where I was able to see what the audience looked like, so I'm going to assume I am correct.

And now, I am finished with my analysis of his TED Talk, and, while it was interesting to watch, it was not fun to have to do this.

Until next time,

A (very tired) Little Fall of Rain