Addressing the Audience or HEY YOU!!! READ THIS!!!

(Do not read this unless you agree with "Hot Flesh" Disclaimer below)

In William Ong’s Interfaces of the Word, Ong contends that every author assumes a mood for her fictionalized audience when addressing them remotely. To psychologically enter the work, the reader has to “put on the mood that you have fictionalized for him.” (Cornell University Press: 1977, p. 78). Internet advertising exemplifies this device with intimate second-person appeals.

FOR EXAMPLE:
On Astrology.com, a pop-up window tempts me with a “Free Sample Maya-Aztec Reading!” Inside the box, a CGI Meso-American god proffers, “The Mysterious Mayan Zodiac calls on you to rediscover yourself.” The author/god is assuming I’m a lost soul in the mood for metaphysical self-inquiry (after all, I’m searching for astrological guidance on the Internet.) He/she uses an indirect, but authoritative voice: I have been “called upon” and therefore must respond by clicking the big yellow “Click Here.” If I believed in kismet, I might ask myself, is this a typical pop-up… or is it a sign? If I don’t respond, will my “self” remain un-“rediscovered”? I resist and close the box but then I realize I should have captured the image for my example. When I try to find it again, I have no luck. It truly is mysterious! (See “The Internet is Magic”).