Will Haverland Haverland 1

English 1201

Joyce Barnes

Feburary 13, 2022

"We Are Young" Rhetorical Analysis

The song “We Are Young” by Fun features the American singer Janelle Monáe and was

popular from 2011 to 2012. Not long after the original song was first released, it was covered on

a popular tv show Glee. This led to the song getting more exposure and the song was being

listened to all around the world. People began comparing the two versions of the song since they

became popular so fast. Both of the 2 songs instill the main theme of the song, which is living in

the moment and enjoying life that comes with being a youth. Even though the 2 music videos

portray the message in different ways they both effectively get the claim across.

Glee’s cover and the original both portray a scene in the video to help the audience

understand the claim of the song better. Fun’s music video is set in a hotel bar and follows a

woman watching other young adults having fun, fighting, and enjoying life. This is meant to

symbolize the fun times you can have while you are young. The musical style of the song in this

video is Alternative or Indie. Throughout the main portion of the video, the different sets of

people going out and enjoying one another helps magnify the overarching idea of having fun

while being young. In the Glee cover, the video takes place in a high school auditorium. It shows

the singers of the glee club singing and dancing together on top of the stage. This shows two

divided groups coming together to have fun and sign together. The two different groups joining

as one signifies how important it is to put away your differences to enjoy life for the better. The

two different scenes both have the same meaning yet are shown in different ways, because they

have the same meaning both of them have show similarities of the true message of the song.
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The scenes in both of the videos are meant to embark on an emotional response to help

get the claim across better. This is better known as pathos which artists widely use to make their

music videos more enjoyable. In both of the videos, they show people laughing and having a fun

time. Having people enjoying their lives in the video can help with the psychological aspect of

the song. If the audience enjoys the music video it could help them understand the claim better

and uncover the underlying message of the song. The artists also repeat words that can be

associated with happy emotions to amply the overall good energy in the video. be In Glee’s

cover, their music video is sung in mainstream pop and a happier tone which can help strengthen

the pathos in the video. All of the different versions of pathos in the video can appeal to the

audience's emotions which then can lead them to the particular emotions in the claim the artist

wants to portray.

The audience for the two different videos can help get the message across to a wider

group of people. The first video has a more mature feel to it, so it can appeal to young adults and

adults. Since the setting of the video is in a bar and people are drinking this adds to the mature

feel. Adults sometimes forget about the time when they were young, so targeting this video to

them would make the claim even more important. The second music video was in a show which

was directed towards teens. In the video, the glee club is singing in a high school auditorium

which teens can relate to. The target audience for this video was people, particularly in the

younger ages. The claim of the song is about being young so the specific audience is perfect for

hearing this message.

In conclusion, there are some minor differences between the two videos yet they both can

get the message across successfully. The use of pathos in both videos helps support the claim in

the two videos. They also have a similar music style to make the happy meaning of the song
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stronger. Even though the scenes portrayed in the two videos are drastically different they are

both very effective. They have more in common rather than different yet both of the videos can

appeal to different audiences. Since they both appeal to different audiences and can both

demonstrate the claim it shows both of the videos are constructive in portraying the claim.

Works Cited:

Klasfeld, Marc. “Fun.: We Are Young Ft. Janelle Monáe [Official ... - Youtube.”

Youtube, 2011, https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=Sv6dMFF_yts.

Broadcasting, Fox. “YouTube.” Youtube, 2016, https://youtu.be/a-VhdeuRtwE.