Point of View -- Meghan Daum

Meghan Daum can be best described as having a critical point of view. In her column “Geez Frisco,” Daum criticizes San Francisco's excessive ban on buying pets from pet stores. In another one of her columns, “Curvy or no,” she criticizes Mattel for coming out with Curvy Barbie, saying that Barbie is still a mean girl no matter what. In her writing she severely chastises both parties for their “blunders” by using informal diction to make fun of them.

One writing craft technique that Daum uses in her writing in order to establish a caustic and critical tone is low and informal diction. She uses this technique in order to put emphasis on her sarcasm and make it seem more mocking. For example, she uses words like “geez,” “kooky” and “jerks” to make fun of San Franciscans. Her informal diction makes San Francisco look and sound stupid in comparison to other cities. When she describes San Francisco as kooky, she uses this slang term for weird to debase the city's government and inhabitants. When she calls its inhabitants jerks, she directly makes fun of the people who live in San Francisco. She ultimately calls the San Franciscans strange and unreasonable using these casual and informal words. She treats Mattel the same way, using words like “basic” and “sucks” to call Barbie stupid. She describes Barbie as a “ high – maintenance, trend – obsessed yet eternally bland young woman”, the equivalent of how she calls San Franciscans jerks. In both of these columns, Meghan Daum uses informal diction in order to berate San Francisco and Barbie.

Links: Curvy or no, Barbie is still a mean girl
          http://www.latimes.com/opinion/op-ed/la-oe-daum-curvy-barbie-20160204-20-column.html
          Geez Frisco, lighten up
          http://articles.latimes.com/2011/jun/30/opinion/la-oe-daum-pets-20110630