Sabrina Gogna

Professor Dowd

Writing 39B

10 March 2019

Animals Have Feelings Too, You Know?

        As we were discussing what belongs in the Rhetoric-In-Practice Project, I knew the message I wanted to discuss: animals have feelings too. I wasn’t sure what genre I wanted to use to execute this message; All I knew is that I wanted this to be a blog that gets published on a website directed for members of the makeup community. Moments before starting the actual project, it occurred to me that there is this one website that is directed towards to the beauty and fashion community: Cosmopolitan.com. Since the theme of my WR39B class is unnatural creatures, I chose the narrator to be a talking rabbit. I made the decision of choosing a rabbit because rabbits are the most used animal in laboratories to be tested on or experimented with.

        Throughout the blog, I used many rhetorical devices to engage my audience into the blog and force them to really think about the cosmetics they are purchasing in order to persuade them to replace their products with cruelty-free ones. One of the devices I used for the majority of this project is rhetorical questions to force the readers to feel the pain of the rabbits through their own pets. I used that as a persuasive technique because many people who are pet owners love their pets. By comparing rabbits to their pets conveys that all animals have feelings regardless of what species they are. It compels them to think about what emotions they’re pets will go through if they were the ones to be living in the shoes of “guinea pigs, rats and mice”(Humane Society International 1). It’s important to include other animals who are also being tested even though I wrote this blog in the perspective of a rabbit. I also included three advertisements alongside the article. Those advertisements advocate for purchasing cruelty-free products. As the reader is reading the blog, if they’re considering of replacing their products, then they know which products they can start buying from. Additionally, toward the end of the blog I included another advertisement that allows the readers to open up a different blog to get informed about different kinds of cruelty-free foundations. Furthermore, I inserted slang that is used in the modern world and casual and simple diction to make it comprehensible for all of the age groups that are included within the makeup community. Lastly, I used logos to prove how many rabbits actually suffer yearly due to them being tested on: “more than 160,000 of them are abused in U.S. laboratories every year”(PETA 1). Not many people realize how many rabbits have to suffer through our beauty and they don’t know the types of tests that these rabbits have to go through. I included the “skin irritancy tests” since that is one of the most common one widely used (American Anti-Vivisection Society 1).

        The colors and the organization of my blog post relates to the ones that are presented on the Cosmopolitan website. That website is filled with vibrant colors, modern day slang, advertisements promoting the beauty world, and instagram posts. Many articles and blogs on the website also include subtitles differentiating paragraphs and topics.

        What motivated me to write about animal cruelty in the cosmetic industry are all of the people I have come across (in person, on all platforms of social media) who show hypocrisy by stating they don’t support animal cruelty, but the makeup brands they use do. So by purchasing those products they are letting those companies know that they are supporting animal cruelty and letting them know that it is okay to continue to do what they do in order to produce the item. I have always felt annoyed by those kinds of people because that shows their lack of knowledge of the products they use and the brands they support.

Works Cited:

Admin. “Rabbits.” American Anti-Vivisection Society,

        aavs.org/animals-science/animals-used/rabbits/.

I used this article to find out what tests were being done to the rabbits to convey how the animals are hurting and we have no idea from the outside looking in on the beauty community.

“List of Officially Cruelty-Free Brands - 2019.” Cruelty-Free Kitty,

        www.crueltyfreekitty.com/list-of-cruelty-free-brands/.

This website helped me develop the advertisements I created alongside the blog post. It allowed me to discover companies are cruelty-free.

“Rabbits in Laboratories.” PETA, 23 Jan. 2019,

        www.peta.org/issues/animals-used-for-experimentation/rabbits-laboratories/.

This article helped me include the logos by giving me a number of how many rabbits suffer each year from animal cruelty in the beauty industry. Humans fail to realize that although those numbers are decreasing, it is not valid for them to put those animals through such cruelty.

“Rabbits: Blinded for Beauty.” Humane Society International,

        www.hsi.org/issues/becrueltyfree/facts/blinded_rabbits.html.

In this website, I was able to locate what types of animals are being put in laboratories to increase my argument and to convince the human race that it’s more than one type on animal that faces this suffering.