1. Rhetorical Analysis: Dear Fat People
ENG 202 // Taylor Lutz

2. In “Dear Fat People,” one clear aim of the video, as the name suggests, is to send a particular message about people who are overweight. The creator Nichole Arbour explicitly states in her video that she hopes her “tough love” will help to encourage “fat people” to make better choices. Although the video’s suggested aim is to help overweight people, rhetorically, this video plays on many negative devices in order to power this message.
Aside from this “surface” aim, there is also the aim of Nichole Arbour herself. The sensitivity of the subject, coupled with the manner in which the video’s humor discusses this subject, seems to be a recipe for controversy. Therefore, another aim of “Dear Fat People” was likely exposure for the creator herself. The goal for Nichole may have been to stir people up enough and create a conversation around herself in a way that would further her career as an entertainer.
AIM

3. One prominent rhetorical move in “Dear Fat People” is at the very beginning of the video. First, Nichole introduces the topic that she is talking about and even recognizes that she is probably going to get “hate” for it. However, before she goes into her discussion, she makes a correlation between fat people and zombies that deviates into a short talk about The Walking Dead. Although this deviation might seem natural and conversational, the link to a pop culture reference attempts to break the tension surrounding this topic and initially introduce the type of humor that will be imparted throughout the entire video.
Rhetorical Devices

4. As the video continues, Nichole frequently “disclaims” her discussion by attempting to align herself with certain discriminated groups. This move is important in that Nichole attempts to create a sense of commonality and compassion with certain groups while simultaneously ostracizing another. Furthermore, this move both served to strengthen and weaken Nichole’s ethos appeal.
The editing technique used in “Dear Fat People” seems to serve a purpose as well. Not only does it separate the multiple personas that Nichole uses in her video, it also further attempts to break the tension surrounding this topic; the fact that the camera angle keeps changing – along with other variables – serves to create a stronger sense of disconnect between the speaker, the audience, and the issue. The editing takes away some level of sincerity, creating a space where the sensitivity of the topic is not consistent with the manner in which it is being presented.
Rhetorical Devices

5. Nichole uses her personal experience at an airport in order to present an “idea” of the “fat person.” Although she discusses a specific instance and a specific set of people in her video, the picture she paints of them only further abstracts the way in which “fat people” are talked about in the video. Without first abstracting them, Nichole would have been unable to talk so negatively about “fat people.” This is one of the techniques implored to elicit an emotional response. The way that Nichole talks about “fat people” is designed in such a way that produces a strong emotional appeal, albeit negative.
Rhetorical Devices

6. As the title of the video would suggest, the intended audience of this video is “fat people.” Additionally, Nichole Arbor disclaims in her video that she is only speaking to certain types of overweight people - the ones that she feels deserve this type of shaming. However, the actual audience of this video was much broader, reaching over 10 million views on YouTube. The influx of responses from this video were not only from people who were overweight, but a variety of people speaking from a variety of different vantage points. Many responses came from people who identified on some level with the classifier, “fat.” Furthermore, the responses to Nichole’s video were nearly all aimed not necessarily at the message, but rather the way in which the message was delivered.
Audience

7. Shawn Halpin’s response video to “Dear Fat People,” characterizes a specific type of response that Nichole’s video elicited. In his video, Shawn reacts and “analyzes” the video in its entirety; he goes through line by line and responds to what Nichole says. Shawn Halpin’s video is interesting because it, in many ways, uses an ironically similar type of degrading humor as that in “Dear Fat People,” which in that case is largely geared at discrediting Arbour as a comedian and criticizing her as a person. Additionally, this video has been citied as a way to see “Dear Fat People” in full, without giving Nichole Arbour’s YouTube channel more views and possibly furthering the profits and exposure she’s received from posting this video.
Responses
Another popular type of response to Nichole’s video is represented in videos like that from boogie2988, which has over 1.5 million views. This video is primarily engaged not in judging Arbour’s character, but rather responding to the message and the method with which it was delivered. Although every response video is unique, many of the responses to “Dear Fat People” seemed to be elicited by a kind of offense to Nichole's video that was rooted in an individual story or experience.

8. After “Dear Fat People,” was posted, the video quickly received a large amount of exposure. Nichole Arbor was criticized for her “humor,” and the video ultimately received bad publicity. The video, which has received over ten million views since it was uploaded five months ago, now has both the comments section and the ‘Like’ and ‘Dislike’ buttons disabled. However, if Nichole’s real aim for this video was to get exposure – then rhetorically it functioned extremely effectively. For Nichole, this video put her on the map and made her “relevant” – a goal for most entertainers. Additionally, there is also the financial gain that goes along with this type of viral video. That being said, Nichole’s exposure as a comedian might not have benefited from this upload; the video did not appear to “sell” her comedy in a way that resonated with her audience. Instead, Nichole’s video resulted in a massive response on social media, specifically YouTube, with the reactions, responses and parodies that followed her upload. Furthermore, “Dear Fat People” prompted an enormous conversation surrounding body positivity and fat shaming.
Affect