First off, I want to say I'm totally in love with Rob Harvilla's writing style. It's brilliant. The dry humor the descriptions that follow all of his commentary are familiar and comforting.
Speaker: Harvilla is a character, let me tell you. He definitely embodies liberal views (as can be seen in his "1984 in 2017" article). Harvilla clearly articulates his opinions and perspective through brilliantly organized language. In his article "Is 'La La Land' a Good Musical?" Harvilla fervently sums up the opening of the movie by stating, "awards-show bait begins on the freeway, rendering the mundane fantastical, conjuring balletic elegance and sly humor from the drudgery of everyday routine". Now if that doesn't catch your attention, I wouldn't know how. This is just one example of the eloquence of the outstanding analyst.
Occasion: Harvilla is an analyst. While The Ringer covers mostly sports analyses, Harvilla voices an intelligent liberal opinion into his pop culture analyses. Harvilla's passion is exposed in his "1984 in 2017" article which takes his opinion-integrated argument to a whole new level of logic.
Audience: Based on Harvilla's elevated language and creative analyses of current events, his audience is most likely young, liberal intellectuals. The music artists Harvilla focuses on (like Ed Sheeran, Drake, and Lady Gaga) are recent, and those popular with the younger generations.
Purpose: Harvilla definitely focuses on the analysis part of pop culture and not-so-much on the informing part. For example, in Harvilla's article "The Surrealist Sitcom Revolution" the entire article focuses on Harvilla's eye-opening perspective, and not as much on educating the audience. When referring to Zorn, a new TV show, Harvilla writes, "Zorn isn't great enough to be good, but it's odd enough to be worth tolerating anyway." Instead of summarizing the show, he integrates his own opinion to argue his point and to advise the audience.
Subject: Harvilla tends to cover pop culture more than sports on the site. Some of his recent articles include "Toward a Universal Theory of Alec Baldwin", "With 'More Life,' Drake Is Finally Making Sense of His Success", and "Making Peace with Ed Sheeran." Although The Ringer is a sports analysis website, the crafty pop culture articles are refreshing. They are geared towards intelligent minds, as well, which created a mentally stimulating environment - unlike the majority of modern pop culture updates.
Tone: "Witty" and "eloquent" are two words I would use to accurately describe Harvilla's writing style. Sarcasm and other forms of humor are practically integrated into his pieces. He accurately describes pop culture in a way everyone relates to ,but no one will admit,(which is easily exemplified throughout his "No, Really: Root for Twenty One Pilots at the Grammys" article), and yields a familiar and amusing tone.
Alyssa Bereznak caught my attention with her article "The Future is Farming". With an informative and educated tone, Bereznak impressively describes a current problem that I happen to be very familiar with. Speaker: Bereznak appears informative and offers a lot of evidence to back up her claims. Because she uses little of her own voice, one must look at the topics she writes about to get a sense of who she is (feminist, pop-culture enthusiast, current events addict). Although she avoids voicing her comments, the argument is still obviously apparent. In "The Problem with 'Girlboss' Feminism", Bereznak clearly takes a stance, and the stance uses so much evidence, it hardly seems to be an opinion.
Occasion: Bereznak's articles fall into three main categories: social issues, current events, and pop culture. From agriculture, to TV shows, to Instagram and Mark Zuckerberg - Bereznak is sure to cover a wide range of topics, keeping her audience intrigued with her subjects and her argument.
Audience: Bereznak appeals to a liberal audience, likely including many feminists. As Bereznak writes many articles with a female audience in mind ("The Problem with 'Girlboss' Feminism" and "What It Was Like for a Woman to Become an Engineer in the '80s"), she provides a call to action for working conditions to improve for women which builds her female audience. As much of her work addresses pop culture, Bereznak also appeals to a younger audience.
Purpose: To argue her point, Bereznak delivers information to the audience with the goal of raising awareness for social issues and arguing sides of current events. In "What It Was Like for a Woman to Become an Engineer in the '80s", she describes a relevant issue and offers a call to action by describing and introducing a scenario most working women must face. Without personal commentary, Bereznak offers a convincing matter-of-fact view to convince the audiences of real concerns.
Subject: Although Bereznak is an writer for a sports analysis website, she covers mostly pop culture, current events, and some politics. For example, she covers women's rights through her articles "What It Was Like for a Woman to Become an Engineer in the '80s" and "The Problem with 'Girlboss' Feminism". She covers social media with "Reminder: Instagram Is Not a Recommendation App" and popular events with articles like "Westminster’s Best in Show: Rumor Has It."
Tone: Although she might be viewed as humorless, Bereznak creates an informative and educational tone. From Agriculture to technology, her passion shines through. Bereznak's articles show the drive and motivation to educate through the integration of facts and logic. It is clear to the audience that Bereznak is knowledgable, which stems from her genuine interests in her choice in topics.