The Onion

The Onion’s mock press release about the MagnaSoles shoe inserts satirizes how products are marketed to customers. The article is riddled through with malapropisms, and the whole article is a parody of an advertisement. Sarcastic irony is used when statements are made in the article that are obviously meant to show that the opposite is true, and hyperbole, or exaggeration, is used to show how advertisers will try to convince people that their product is useful for many more issues than it is. Malapropisms are the main use of satire in this article. Words like “kilofrankels”, “pain-nuclei”, and “comfortrons” are clearly not scientific terms, but the author uses them to point out that people usually believe what they’re told if big, technical-sounding words are used. Pseudoscience is a defined term, yet it is a belief that is presented as scientific, but has no scientific status. Therefore, when it’s used in the article to prove that something is valid, it’s really just exaggeration and negates whatever claims were made. The article advertises that MagnaSoles heals using Terranometry, but Terranometry is a type of pseudoscience, and has no basis in fact. Many other defined terms are used falsely. “Biofeedback” and “bio flow” are both words used in science, but in the article they are used incorrectly, just to make MagnaSoles sound legitimate. Sarcastic irony is implemented in testimonies from customers. The consumers “are hailing them as a welcome alternative to expensive, effective forms of traditional medicine.” The fact that consumers prefer MagnaSoles over “effective forms of traditional medicine” is ironic, because MagnaSoles don’t work. One customer said that after spraining her ankle and then wearing MagnaSoles for seven weeks, she was healed. That’s ironic because she would have healed in seven weeks anyway, no matter what she wore. She just happened to be wearing MagnaSoles for those seven weeks, and so she thought they had healed her. Another