False Authority
The fallacies of ethos are the group of fallacies I would
feel most comfortable using in my writing simply because I am the author. To me
it’s easier to manipulate people into believing something about another person
or to be persuaded by the authority of another person. False authority is a
fallacy of ethos that occurs when an author tries to trick the audience into over
estimating their (the authors) creditability. It also can refer to using a
celebrity or other educated person to advertise or testify of something that
they are not knowledgeable about. One
example of the false authority fallacy I have seen is the Proactive
commercials. Proactive is an acne medication so if the company wanted to have
the most knowledgeable people advertising for them they would most likely want
to use dermatologists and chemist to explain the science of the product and
what makes it so different and have faster results than other face cleansing
products. However this is not what the company does. Instead they hire
celebrities to endorse their product. The celebrities attest to using the
product and raving about how amazing the product is and all that it has done
for them. Whether or not the celebrities actually used the product or if it
even worked could never be known by the audience. Though I have been
manipulated into wanting to try other things endorsed by people in the media, I
have never believed that the Proactive commercials were real or reliable. Its
obvious that the company is probably just paying the celebrities to endorse
their product because they know it will sell better that way as compared to
having dermatologist talking about it. Celebrities wear immense amounts of
make-up so there is no true way of knowing if they ever had bad acne or not.
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