PCMatic: at war, the people’s militia, resistance .. and metaphors?
Friday, January 18th, 2019[ by Charles Cameron — an ad that blew my mind, mil metaphor piled on mil metaphor, and various ways to name theenemy, eh? — troika, wolf pack.. ]
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Here we go.
I was staggered to see the number of military / militant references inj this commercial —
our country is at war, a cyber war the enemy, ransomeware, is rapidly growing in sophistication the enemy is exploiting a hole in our defenses we are pcmatic, the people’s militia to defeat the ransomware empire patriots of the resistance we believe we can build an army we will defeat this enemy and win the war join the ransomware resistance.
This is the largest cluster of related metaphors I’ve seen in an ad, and I’m curious as to its rhetorical intent..
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Tina Nguyen has written a fascinating piece for Vanity Fair’s Hive on the metaphors we use for The Enemy, better known perhaps as Them:
Axis of evil Network of death Troika of tyranny Triangle of terror Sordid cradle of Communism in the Western Hemisphere Wolf pack of rogue states Cabal of Crazies Circle of Scoundrels League of Extraordinary Villains
Oh so much more potent than calling them Hostile states — Wolf pack of rogue states is superb!
The first set above presents ye actual efforts by various pols to provide metaphorical aid to the othering of our enemies — propaganda at its most succinct — whereas the second set consists of jokers’ parodies & the like — second order propaganda at the expense of the first.
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I’ll be using the comments section of this post for further “collections” (metaphors of war, sports, etc, headlines, chyrons, misc items of interest), and may add some stellar examples — if they “fit” — here in this post.
