Pathos. Paper towel. Politics

Was Scot Paper Towel being ironic? Did they intend to only get a chuckle? I think so.

Perhaps this advertisement never elicited terror. Perhaps it's intention was to merely elicit a chuckle. Cut off the picture and the title, and we confront a non-political advertisement.

Why do i say it’s lighthearted? Besides that it just seems so? The copy, the slogan, and the caption are entirely non-political. The mention of bolsheviks is just the hook. It is made to be it a fun advertisement to read.

But maybe it had only a hint of humor. At the very least it wasn’t aimed at evoking the same seriousness, fear, and drama as, say, this comic book. Or this poster. Washroom, let's call this advertisement, is at least one tier below that, in terms of graveness.

So what, the red scare wasn't real? Of course it was real. American life revolved around it. But their are other ads that are more likely to be of a genuine, straight-faced appeal to heavy and emotional love of country and democracy. E.G. this and this which are two advertisements that remind me ALOT if typical modern discourse on China.


Of course, Employers are bound to be among the most conservative people. (Unless your jewish: If your jewish you vote puerto rican at every economic strata.) So you might say: We can't look at this period without context. We know the red scare was real. So an advertisement targeted at the group we've established would be among the most conservative of a time-- should be looked at openly, without "this is too ridiculous" goggles. The fact is the most out-there antibolsevism would be found among advertisements to the employer class. For this argument, we have to assume that advertisers knew their audience. Not a massively hurdling assumption- it is their job, after all.

So we won't discredit it's seriousness on the basis of it's over the top-ness. But we should remember that neither of the red scares tend to be depicted as happening during the 1930s. Maybe, though. I'd buy it. Stuff happening in europe. Poor and hungry people at home. I'd buy it

Pathos is a play on biases. The charged language about “awkward, unsanitary”, “harsh” paper towels is about as powerful a play on experiences as the subject of paper towel can get. It’s not the most ripe topic of emotional biases. Lipstick or soul food, for example, would be more ripe for appeals to emotional biases then paper towels.

What about biases that aren’t emotional, you say? The rhetorical situation of a washroom is ripe for that time's common experience of industrial employers.The washroom is the workers safe haven  This is the 1930s. People are unhappy, but they know their lucky to even have a job. The only place managers in the 30s get that feeling that people were just talking about YOU, until you came in, was the washroom. It's where whispers and complaints naturally start.

Otherwise, though, I say this advertisement is less an appeal to pathos then logos. The second paragraphs describes how good toilet paper is just a social science life hack. The third is an argument to get on the bandwagon. To me, that is just good logos. If your a small business, your taking notes out of the books of others. Hell, this advertisement was probably among pages in a managerial trade rag or a professional peer reviewed publication.The fourth paragraph starts out as an appeal to logos: describing just how scientific Scot Paper towel is (In the vein of a Glad Bag Ad)

Sure: next paragraph is in the vein of an appeal to biases. paper towel going to pieces= "The Worst". And we've all seen this in infomercials. But the next (second to last) paragraph, as well as the last paragraph is purely an appeal to the logos belonging to a rational economic actor.

In other words : You’ll save money because it will take less paper towel to clean up your messes? That is literally the argument in every TV advertisement starring a mom and paper towel, or a new kind of magic cloth, that I have ever seen. The first paragraph, the most appealing appeal to emotional biases is pretty much the script for the black and white part of an infomercial. The second paragraph is basically convincing employers to remember to say happy birthday to their employees.  Next we have a corporate argumentum ad populum. The fourth paragraph is an appeal to biases, but it’s just experiences with good an bad paper towel— not the most emotionally charged topic. Then on to two final paragraphs that are purely appeals to logos. 

When broken apart, we see that only the title and just a smidgeon of the, say, 130 words of copy, are  Washrooms appeals to pathos, while most of this advertisement is a mundane appeal to logos. The point is— there is nothing except a shadow of red scare in this advertisement. All the appeals to biases are apolitical. Which is why I think this advertisement is lighthearted and not indicative of the real terror of this time. If I knew nothing in the world, and saw this ad, I would finish reading it thinking that Americans felt secure and unthreatened regarding their national survival, in the face of communism, in the 1930s.

Titles and pictures about the overthrow of western society that are said without an ironic tongue in cheek aren’t followed by six cheery paragraphs and a finishing slogans about their paper towel being "Really Dry!".

Scot paper towel ad is melodramatic from a modern perspective, and perhaps it was melodramatic then too. Or maybe I have an inability to remove my modern bias. However, just because this type of advertisement was a teensy bit melodramatic at the time, doesn’t meant wasn’t rooted in serious paranoia.