"Skins"

The long anticipated MTV show, Skins, which has been recently premiered, resulted with shocking and disappointing reactions from MTV’s young audience. MTV is a television channel that generally relates to most young teenagers by taking common interests, such as love, appearances, and social life, and projecting them in a comical way that humors and interests its audience. The two main rhetorical devices that are commonly used in these shows are pathos and ethos. Pathos is essential in order to relate to the audience and to create an interest for the show. The creation of humor in these shows helps strengthen the pathos used. Having celebrities appear on the shows is an example of ethos. The presence of well-known celebrities helps increase the credibility of these shows. For example, Snooki is now a famous celebrity thanks to the hit reality show, Jersey Shore. If anything is shown with Snooki in it, it automatically sparks an interest to the young audience because they know how foolish Snooki is and they deduce that anything with Snooki in it is funny. Because Jersey Shore effectively utilizes pathos and ethos, it is a popular reality show.

Even before Skins premiered, the commercials that previewed for the show were very uninformative and confusing. They consisted of clips from the show either showing the characters high, drunk, or stoned. There was no way to decipher what this show was going to be about. These commercials created me to become curious, which lead me to watch the first episode of the season, not knowing what to expect. The disappointing reactions from the new show Skins was primarily caused by the poor use of these two rhetorical devices. The pathos utilized in this show was a sad attempt to make Skins humorous and interesting. However, in reality it exaggerates the typical stereotype of a teenager, which is being an "emotional, wasted stoner." They try to make the characters in the show relate to the audience by making them obsessed with drugs, sex, and drinking. I feel this show is a false representation of the young teenagers and I also find it as quite offensive. The majority of teenagers do not participate in these activities nor to the extent they convey they do in the show. Also, the main characters in this show are not well known actors so it is very hard to rely on their credibility. The combination of the low credibility of these characters and the offensive use of pathos makes Skins a show that causes a disturbance to the audience it is directed towards.