“Adam Ruins the Suburbs”

For this assignment, I don’t want you to watch this as a viewer. I want you to watch it like a researcher. In a 300-word post on WordPress, consider the following questions: What’s the myth of suburban life that Adam Conover is responding to? What are the specific ways in which Conover’s research punctures that myth?  What do you make of this form of research writing that’s focused on undercutting commonly held assumptions? What role does humor play in this form of research writing? What’s one new concept you learned from this episode and what kind of evidence does Conover offer for it?

Adam Conover is going against the myths of the “perfect life” in the suburbs. Where people say it is “safer” in these suburbs and that life is not any better if you do or don’t live in these places. He proves this myth wrong multiple times but starts with saying that the suburbs consume about 9 billion gallons of water to upkeep with the imported grass that the lawns all have. It’s also very nice that while Adam is proving his points, he gives you the citations to where the show finds the data to back his words up. And that these articles are “the every day person” can read articles too. The humor is to play upon the fact that the common person can easily know all this information and has probably heard this information before whether it be in a history class or in the news prior to this episode. A new concept I learned from the video is that factual numbers and percentages of how bad the suburbs are and how the black communities are still being affected by the actions taken by suburbs.