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Ashlee Johnston

Dr. Haslam

English 1010

30 October 2020

Rhetorical Analysis

The article “The Gig Economy Celebrates Working Yourself To Death”, written by Jia

Tolentino and published March 22, 2017 on The New Yorker, was a response to a post that Lyft,

a ride sharing app, made on the company blog. They posted about a driver of theirs who was

about to give birth but still gave a Lyft ride to someone on her way to the hospital. Lyft told this

as a funny story and asked if anyone else had an exciting Lyft story to share and post it. While

some would look at this as a funny story, others look at it as a call for help. Or in the words of

Tolentino, “because the gig economy has further normalized the circumstances in which earning

an extra eleven dollars can feel more important than seeking out the urgent medical care that

these quasi-employers do not sponsor”. This article was written for the working population as an

audience. Tolentino explains throughout her article, with pathos, ethos and logos, how the gig

economy celebrates working yourself to death.

Pathos is a big part of this article. The emotion she uses in her writing makes the reader

feel very opposed to the idea that this economy normalizes bad habits and then congratulates

them. Mary was a driver for Lyft who was one week away from her due date when she started

feeling contractions. On her way to the hospital, Mary gave rides to Lyft passengers before going

to the labor and delivery floor. In a very powerful part of her article, Tolentinio says, “Mary’s

story looks different to different people. Within the ghoulishly cheerful Lyft public-relations

machinery, Mary is an exemplar of hard work and dedication—the latter being, perhaps, hard to
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come by in a company that refuses to classify its drivers as employees. Mary’s entrepreneurial

spirit—taking ride requests while she was in labor!—is an “exciting” example of how seamless

and flexible app-based employment can be. Look at that hustle! You can make a quick buck with

Lyft anytime, even when your cervix is dilating”. This was a great place to use sarcasm to get

her point across. It also plays with the emotions of the reader. Tolentino's writing makes the

audience feel very interested and have sympathy for Mary and her story.

Tolentino also plays on appeal to pathos to gain sympathy for the hard work people put

into their jobs and what little they actually have. In the article, Tolentino talks about stories we

hear all the time, the ones about citizens who walk miles to work. She writes, “ I’ve come to

detest the local-news set piece about the man who walks ten or eleven or twelve miles to work—

a story that’s been filed from Oxford, Alabama; from Detroit, Michigan; from Plano, Texas. The

story is always written as a tearjerker, with praise for the person’s uncomplaining attitude; a car

is usually donated to the subject in the end. Never mentioned or even implied is the shamefulness

of a job that doesn’t permit a worker to afford his own commute.” The stories like these try to

use pathos to make the audience feel bad for the guy having to walk so far; they can distract from

the main issue of the reality that he doesn't get paid enough to afford a car. Tolentino uses pathos

against this story, helping us realize the real problem. She pulls readers' heartstrings by the

stories she uses that depict what people must do to earn a measly living.

Tolentino appeals to logos with the facts she uses. In the article it says, “Lyft does not

provide its drivers paid maternity leave or health insurance. (It offers to connect drivers with an

insurance broker, and helpfully notes that ‘the Affordable Care Act offers many choices to make

sure you’re covered.’)”. Tolentino uses this fact to show how hard it might be for some of them

to get insurance since Lyft itself does not provide any. She also says, “A third-party platform

called SherpaShare, which some drivers use to track their earnings, found, in 2015, that Lyft
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drivers in Chicago net about eleven dollars per trip”. Tolentino includes this fact so we can learn

more about the drivers and how much they make.

Tolentino also uses opinionated statements that make you wonder why this isn't a fact.

For example Tolentino says, “The contrast between the gig economy’s rhetoric (everyone is

always connecting, having fun, and killing it!) and the conditions that allow it to exist (a lack of

dependable employment that pays a living wage) makes this kink in our thinking especially

clear”. Throughout her whole article, Tolentino has a talent for making readers see her point of

view. She writes it in such a way that makes readers forget that there is another side to every

argument. Tolentino makes her side seem very logical. In the article the gig economy is

described as flawed, normalized, and cannibalistic. Her writing makes the audience feel very

connected to her. They can see how her argument makes sense and feel the fixed views on this

subject.

Tolentino appeals to ethos by the sources she uses. She uses very credible sources and

even gives you links, titles and authors. Readers can tell that Tolentino did her research when it

comes to this article. She uses a variety of stories, books and ads that are all very reliable. This

article was also posted in The New Yorker with a number of her earlier articles she had written.

One example of ethos is when Tolentino uses an ad from Fiverr. She even has the ad as one of

the photos, therefore proving that such a thing exists. In the article she says, “One ad,

prominently displayed on some New York City subway cars, features a woman staring at the

camera with a look of blank determination. ‘You eat a coffee for lunch,’ the ad proclaims. ‘You

follow through on your follow through. Sleep deprivation is your drug of choice. You might be a

doer.’”Tolentino gives all the resources any reader would need to verify her information is true

and further explains the ads' wanted effect and uses the message against Fiverr.
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Jia Tolentino uses rhetoric to get her point across. Pathos was a very big part of this. Her

vast use of pathos pulls on your emotions and makes you feel sympathetic. In Tolentino's words,

“This is the jargon through which the essentially cannibalistic nature of the gig economy is

dressed up as an aesthetic. No one wants to eat coffee for lunch or go on a bender of sleep

deprivation—or answer a call from a client while having sex, as recommended in the video [by

Fiverr]”.The gig economy celebrates working yourself to death, and after the audience reads this,

they feel the same antipathy for this issue as Tolentino.

Work citings:

Tolentino, Jia, et al. “The Gig Economy Celebrates Working Yourself to Death.” The New

Yorker, 22 Mar. 2017, www.newyorker.com/culture/jia-tolentino/the-gig-economy-

celebrates-working-yourself-to-death.

Carlye Davis’s Feedback:

I thought this was a good first draft, and it will be absolutely amazing after a few alterations!

One major strength of your essay was quote selection. Each quote you used contributed very

nicely to your claims for Tolentino’s rhetorical strategies. I thought your introductory context

paragraph was good; you mentioned the article’s name, the author’s name, and what the article

was written in response to. Consider also mentioning who the intended audience is within the

context paragraph. After the context paragraph, consider adding a paragraph purely dedicated to

summarizing the article. You jumped right into discussing rhetorical strategies after the

introduction, and that was okay for me because I’ve also read the article, but someone who

hasn’t will need more background information. Then after you’ve finished with a summary

paragraph, start a new paragraph that only contains your thesis, and then you can begin your

“body paragraphs” which discuss the rhetorical strategies. I thought your claims were accurate

and well supported. If you wanted to add that Tolentino also uses logos, I left an annotation that

kind of explains how you could do that. You did well at focusing on rhetorical strategies. There

is one part where you slipped into arguing on the side of Tolentino, but I left an annotation

explaining how you can fix that. Also, I like your conclusion; it summarizes the issues well, but

consider removing the beginning part where it says, “To summarize…”. There weren’t any
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major grammatical issues I’m aware of, but if there were any issues, I left annotations explaining

how to correct them. Great job, and I hope this feedback helps!

Katie webb

This essay is very strong in showing the reader how each element is shown in the original

story, the writer showed really good evidence from the story as well. For example, in the first

paragraph the writer shows a lot of good evidence from the original story. The introduction does

a really good job to show the context of the text. The writer did a good job at giving us enough

background information to know what is going on. The summary gives a good overview of the

original text and explains a lot of needed information. This essay also does a very well job at

explaining and focusing on the rhetorical elements of the text, it explains how the story doesn’t

use any logos. We know this because the original writer doesn’t use any facts, rather opinionated

statements. Overall I’d say the essay was put together very well and showed all the right things,

however for the final draft I would say that somethings in this were kind of confusing to me, like

the one sentence I commented on about never being mentioned.

Allie Reiser

Overall thoughts-

The essay was alright overall, nothing too negative or anything too positive. The essay’s

biggest strength was explaining how logos were not used often in the article. However, as

mentioned above I would include you bringing up logos in your introduction to introduce the

subject. Your ethos and pathos were also strong and really brought the whole essay together.

However, I think you needed more examples and explanations for both of these. Including more
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quotes would greatly strengthen your analysis, and elaborating what the author means with these

quotes will also be greatly beneficial to your analysis. The biggest thing that needs to be fixed is

your conclusion. While it did hit all the necessary points I found it to be a bit lacking in the end.

There wasn’t enough fluff-meaning extra fancy words-and a run down of how the author wrote

the article. Including small things such as, the author had a bias towards this, or she she remained

neutral and didn’t state her personal opinion throughout the article, something like this will help

summarize the conclusion. In the end, the analysis is really good for the first draft. When you

think of the things I brought up there are small and easy fixes. I loved reading this analysis.