Running head: WARNING THE FACEBOOK ADDICTED

Log Off Social Media, Log On to Life

Tahmina Ansari
Antioch University

Running head: WARNING THE FACEBOOK ADDICTED

Log Off Social Media, Log On to Life

As time passes, technology is taking over how people communicate with each other, and
with that the social media has only become bigger, which can be both negative and positive.
Facebook is an online social network that makes it easy for you to connect and share things with
your family and friends. Originally designed for college students, created in 2004 by Mark
Zuckerberg, but after the page got famous, everybody started using it (Facebook 101, 2014).
Commercial director Shaun Higton tried to catch different target audiences through
different genres a category of things [well-known] by some common characteristic or quality
(dictionary, 2014) or a style of expressing yourselfwith his warning message about how some
people use Facebook in a wrong way by living a fake life online, which he thinks is becoming a
social justice issue a problem in the society that can affect a lot of people in a bad way.
Shaun Higton especially use his video, website and article to reach different audiences
with the same warning message by using different vocabulary, rhetoric, and style of approach in
order to reach social media users, the new generation and people who are not that addicted to
social media.

WARNING THE FACEBOOK ADDICTED

Background
Shaun Higton is a well-known director originally from California but lives in Norway
with a passion for storytelling. He started his career directing short-films and viral videos before
moving into commercials. Shaun often uses visual storytelling and humor to tell his stories.
Every project, regardless of subject matter, is a new opportunity to create something entertaining
and memorable (Higton, 2014).
Shaun Higtons job is actually making commercial videos for different organizations,
with different topics and messages. The short movie What is on your mind is his most popular
movie (Youtube, 2014). He made it because of personal experiences and reasonswhich he
think was important to share. The short-movie now has seventeen million views, and it is
published on Facebookwhere I first saw itVimeo and also on YouTube. As a social media
user, which is one of his target audiences, they know what the movie is about because of the
context, what the character is doing, and the ironic way he made it by using Facebook. To give
everyone a better understanding of his short video and not only social media users, he also wrote
an article for the Little Black Book (ibbonline, 2014) where he explains why he made the movie,
where he got the inspiration, and who he was thinking about.
I am going to find more about what kinds of methods he used to reach the right audience with his
warning message, we are going to look at how he uses ethos, pathos, and logosethos is the
credibility, pathos is the use of emotion, and logos is the appeal to reason (Losh et al, 2013).
Analyze the thoughts and work behind the video by having a interview with the director about
small details he uses in the short movie, look at an article he wrote about human branding,

WARNING THE FACEBOOK ADDICTED

and other writing genres he used to give people a better understanding and reach as many people
as possible with his warning.
During the interview I had with Shaun Higton, I got some answers about what it is
important to do and think about as a director before making a short-movie, and how the use of
rhetoric can reach a lot of people.
Analysis
I first saw Shaun Higtons short-movie, on Facebookwhich now has passed 1.23
Billion monthly active users according to Thenextweb.com. The name of the movie sounds
familiar to Facebook-users, as it is the same phrase as in the status-box on Facebook, and
because of that specific name on the moviewhich was a tool Higton used to reach a lot of
people, it raises more curiosity. I clicked on the profile to find out more about who the brain
behind this short-movie was. The Cover photo of the profile was Shaun Higtons website.
During our interview he told me that as a director he definitely think it helps to showcase your
work as easily and cleanly as possible on a website. Producers and production companies are
busy so they dont have a lot of time to read and navigate through an overly complicated website.
That is why his website is very easy and clean. The text about him and what he is doing is very
short with just one paragraphit gives a good first impression if you havent seen any of his
work before. The first thing you will se on his website is the home page, where his most
popular short-film is publishedthe warning message about Facebook. This encourages people
to redirect to his PortfolioA collection of all the work you have conducted trough your
career where you can watch the rest of his short-films.

WARNING THE FACEBOOK ADDICTED

He has been using few words, short texts, and a lot of clips that makes it interesting and easier to
find what you want on his website (Higton, 2014).
In one of our course readings I learned that, when writing a good text, it is vital to write
some shitty drafts first, get things down, then edit it. "The third draft is the dental draft, where
you check every tooth, to see if it's loose or cramped or decayed (Lamott, 2005). Through the
interview with Higton, he told me that as a director it varies how many drafts or versions you go
through before you get to a final shooting script, and that the result will be better as many drafts
you have. For this short film he pretty much wrote one draft in one to gosince he got the
inspiration by self-experience, and the topic was very important to him. He found it rare, but he
said that he had the movie in his head for so long, so this time it happened that way.
Higton aim is always to write about something that interests and moves him in the hope
that other people also will be move by it. The negative consequences of the use of social media
have been a topic popular to the general public for a while now, so making a short-movie based
on that, is something very relevant to many people, as it appeals to their emotions. Some people
may have friends, family members, children, or a partner who is already addicted or overuse the
social network, as in the short-movie. Higton also told me that this short-movie has been
fortunate enough to reach a wide range of people, and his focus was to publish it on Facebook to
reach as many users as possible. In an article he wrote for Little Black Bookhe stated that he
started to be concerned about the social media users, especially the new generation of people
who are being born straight into a world of social media. The chances for their first selfie is
probably from the maternity ward, about 30 seconds after birth (ibbonline, 2014) which is a
alarming.

WARNING THE FACEBOOK ADDICTED

The text in his movie is very short, and he uses rhetorica way to express your self
effectivelythrough the use of pathos by using the <3, which is a popular emoticon among
social media users, they can relate to. The director claims that using emoticon in the movie was a
simple creative choice to write the way people write in messages and on Facebook. He was just
trying to be as authentic as possible. Also it worked in some way to make the punch lines funnier
or sadderdepending on how you see things. The short-movie never tells you what it is about by
word, but the context is clear, the director uses contrast as evidencewhich is very important to
make his arguments strong about his warning, as we also learned in one of our class readings
(Losh, et al, 2013), and he represent different sides in his movie, which shows a mans life from
two completely different viewshis life trough Facebook and his real life. In that way the
director also uses visual literacythe ability to make meaning from information presented in the
form of an image (Losh, et al, 2013)to argument his opinion about what Facebook can do with
you and your life.
To give people who didnt get his short-movie a better understanding, he wrote an article
for the website: Little Black Book. Since Higton is doing a lot of commercials the website asked
him to share his thoughts about human-branding as he told me during our interview.
He had never written an article before so he found it interesting and challenging. This article is
an insight of where Shaun Higton got his inspiration from and why he wanted to make this shortmovie. First of all, he is referring to ethos by writing about his own self-experience when it
comes to using Facebook in a wrong way, and thus making it become an anti social network
instead of a social network. The article gets more detailed afterwards about why he is warning
peopleespecially the new generation.

WARNING THE FACEBOOK ADDICTED

When it comes to the social network, Facebook, he mentions examples about people using too
much time on social media, liking and commenting random pictures and statuseswhich refers
to our pathos because a lot of people recognize themselves. He wrote the article with a formal
tone, easy vocabulary, correct formatting and grammar to make the article clean and clearly laid
out.
Conclusion
The Director, Shaun Higton uses his video, website, and article to reach different
audiences with the same warning message by using different vocabulary, and style of approach
in order to reach social media user, the new generation and people who are not that addicted to
social media. He is using his website with the warning message video in the first page, with
focus on reaching producers and organizations. He wrote an article for a website to get more
detailed about his thoughts around the short-movie, to give people that dont know that much
about Facebook a better understanding of how people use it in a wrong way, by living a double
life. In the end, he published the short-movie on YouTube, Facebook and Vimeo to reach as
many social media users as possible with his warning.
I asked Higton in the end of the interview how people responded to the short-movie, he
answered that it has been overwhelmingly positive. The audience gets inspired and moved
because he is using ethos, pathos and logos as mentioned before, which make them recognize
their self in his video. To his surprise it has also been the basis of a lot of debate. He hope that
people learn something by watching it and take care of what they have in their real life before
they loose it.

WARNING THE FACEBOOK ADDICTED

References
Facebook 101. (n.d.). Retrieved December 2, 2014, from
http://www.gcflearnfree.org/facebook101/2
Shaun Higton - About. (n.d.). Retrieved December 2, 2014, from
http://shaunhigton.com/about/
What's on your mind? (n.d.). Retrieved December 3, 2014, from
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=QxVZYiJKl1Y
Higton, S. (n.d.). Are You Becoming a Human Brand Without Even Realising It?
Retrieved December 3, 2014, from http://lbbonline.com/news/are-you-becoming-ahuman-brand-without-even-realising-it/
Losh, E., & Alexander, J. (2013). Why Rhetoric? In Understanding rhetoric:
A graphic guide to writing (First ed., p.44).
Genre - Dictionary Definition. (n.d.). Retrieved December 2, 2014, from
http://www.vocabulary.com/dictionary/genre
Lamott, A. (2005). Shitty First Drafts (pp. 1-2). Boston: Bedford/St. Martin's.
Facebook Passes 1.23 Billion Monthly Active Users. (n.d.). Retrieved December 3, 2014,
from http://thenextweb.com/facebook/2014/01/29/facebook-passes-1-23-billion-monthlyactive-users-945-million-mobile-users-757-million-daily-users/
Losh, E., & Alexander, J. (2013). Argument beyond pro and con.
In Understanding rhetoric: A graphic guide to writing (First ed., p. 159).
Losh, E., & Alexander, J. (2013). Spaces for writing. In Understanding rhetoric:
A graphic guide to writing (First ed., pp. 14-22).