Adam Savage Ted Talk

"My Love Letter to Cosplay" -Adam Savage

In this Ted Talk, Adam Savage speaks to how important costuming and clothing are to the telling of a story. He has been in love with creating and pretending to be characters all his life because at a young age he didn't have friends. So, he learned to have fun by himself through set and costume. He speaks to how as a child he built an astronaut's spaceship and helmet out of cardboard. He then continues to explain how his love for costuming continued as he throughout his life attempted to replicate the costumes of movies and TV shows. From the knights in the movie "Excalibur" to No-Face in"Spirited Away". Savage also speaks to his time on the TV show "Mythbusters" and how he would always use costume to being the narrative of the myth to life. In conclusion, he says, "We're connecting with something important inside of us. And the costumes are how we reveal ourselves to each other." to sum up how important what we wear is to the telling of a story.

Savage gets his point across in a couple of different ways. Primarily he uses Pathos. He does so as he tells us heartwarming and comical stories about his experiences with costuming. He explains the intricacies of each costume he mentioned, the good and the bad, to allow for the listener to relate to them. Take for example his "Excalibur" knight costume that made him pass out from heat exhaustion. We all know what it is like to be hot and to love something so childishly that we put ourselves in harm's way. Savage speaks to these human realities to bring his world of costuming closer to yours. He also used Logos to further his claim. By having pictures of all of the costumes, and even some videos, he makes you not have to imagine what the costumes look like. This is meaningful because costuming and clothing are supposed to be seen. The whole point of his Ted Talk is to explain how important this visual is to storytelling and if he hadn't put those costumes in his presentation there might as well not be a presentation. Finally, Adam Savage uses his credibility (Ethos) of being on the hit TV show "Mythbusters" to get people to tune into his seemingly unpopular augment about costuming. It allows people to relate with him more during the explanation of this concept because they already feel like they know him because of the TV show.

I picked this Ted Talk because I had seen it before and I loved what Savage had to say. The notion of creating things to tell a story has always been a passion of mine. Despite not currently being into costuming I can appreciate the notion and meaning behind the work. However, as a child, I understood where he was coming from. I didn't have many friends and enjoyed playing pretend in the worlds I had built out of cardboard and pillows. Instead of a spaceship, I built a race car out of a refrigerator box. I was super into Halloween every year. I even dressed up in homemade costumes. Creating, in my opinion, is beautiful because it can tell a story. Whether that story is told through costume, woodwork, painting, or sculpture, I believe that a visual or tangible aspect of a story is crucial to its telling.