“Paranoia can destroy your life”, is a quote by the world famous lead singer of Nirvana, Kurt Cobain, and paranoia is exactly the topic of the text ”5 ’Crazy People’ Who Were Right All Along. The genre of the text is an article by Gavin Jamieson, which is published on cracked.com. This website calls itself “America’s only humor site”, which clearly states that the main purpose of the site is to delight the reader.
Humour and irony both plays a big part in the article. An example of the irony can be found in the introduction to the article: “…Guru Cobain was shortly thereafter taken from us by the Ant People who secretly rule our media.” The irony clearly appears in this quote, because as a reader, you know that the author does not mean what he writes, he more likely means the opposite. Furthermore, you see the author’s use of humour in his colourful language. He uses expressions like “kick a battleship’s ass” and “he wasn’t just full of hot air”, which both are metaphors to interest and entertain the reader. Both of the quotes are from paragraph #5, but playful language is used during the entire text. The used language is overall very casual, and the author makes use of an informal tone.
In the text you also find intertextuality, which is references to other movies or texts, the readers know. For example the author makes a reference to the character James Bond from the movies of the same name, when he says “Asian 007’s” and he references to the American pop-culture when he mentions American actress Sandra Bullock in a casual tone. These intertextual references create a space where the reader feels at home in the text because of the many recognizable elements.
The function of the text is both delighting and persuading the reader. The delighting shows in the great the use of humour and playful language, which engages the reader and makes the article interesting to read. The purpose of the article is mainly to persuade the reader. As a reader of the text you get the feeling that the author means some of the things he during the articles says with irony. He uses the humour say exactly what he means but with an ironic distance
The author’s main intention with his article is shown already in the heading of the article. The author wants, apart from delighting his audience, to draw the reader’s attention to the problems of the American government. Thay is why his target group is the American people, who he tries to reach with a casual, informal tone and a creative language. As a reader of the text it becomes clear, that the author agrees with the 5 ‘Crazy People’ he talks about during the article and he believes they were right all along.