Jade Carlos

Professor Massie

English 1301

24 November 2020

“Say something to Prevent Gun Violence” Commercial

In the commercial Say something to prevent gun violence, by Sandy Hook Promise, the

advertisement starts off with the realities of what this generation's school system has turned into.

In particular, this generation has had a tremendous increase in acts of violence in schools, such as

student suicides and school shootings. The commercial emphasizes that students that make

elaborate plans to commit acts of violence at school typically send out numerous warning signs

before they act. The commercial’s intended audience is sixth through twelfth graders. The aim of

the commercial is to teach students to recognize signs given by their fellow peers, through

platforms like social media. Sandy Hook Promise uses the scenes, facts mentioned, and emotions

channeled in order to create a sense of urgency, empower children to be attentive for signs of

school shootings, and to say something when they see the signs that an act of violence could

occur.

To start, the advertisement uses each of the scenes to grab the attention of the audience

from the very beginning. The commercial opens with a child being bullied by three other

children near lockers in the hallway. He stands up to the bullies at the commencement of the act,
but at the end of the scene he is scrunched up on the floor while the other three boys laugh and

speak negative words about him. During each of the scenes, the advertisement attempts to

maintain the audience’s attention. At the opening scene, the ad creates awareness about the

impact that bullying has on a person. While at the end of the scene, the setting changes to a boy

with a hoodie holding up a gun to the person holding the camera. Moreover, the commercial

changes the setting by showing different schools and locations the violence occurs and

showcases different children, thus, it acknowledges how often these instances occur in school

settings and that it affects the lives of many children in this generation. Towards the end of the

commercial, Sandy Hook Promise promotes the slogan, “Say Something,” which “teaches the

youth how to notice signals and signs, especially through social media” (citation here). Each of

the scenes in the ad directed by Sandy Hook Promise, empowers students to educate themselves

and learn more about how they can prevent violent actions from occurring in their school.

Next, the creator of the ad added facts about violent school events.

The narrator reads the facts about different school settings that the violence took place in the

video. For example, in a composition notebook of signatures, a student wrote “2 MILLION

ACTS OF VIOLENCE,” instead of their name (00:13-00:17). After this fact is mentioned, there

is a pause with a young girl sitting on the steps of a school looking very dull and gloomy. This

scene is related to the rates of suicides in children as the ad shows the words “2000 STUDENT

SUICIDES” (00:21-00:24) written on what looks like a back of a red binder. Another scene
showed a young girl staring at something away from the camera again with a depressed look on

her face. Additionally, another scene shows the words, “NEARLY ONE SCHOOL SHOOTING

PER WEEK,” (00:27-00:30) written on a dark green chalkboard. While another pause in the ad

shows a girl sitting on the floor resting on a brick wall with the word HELP written on the wall

in chalk. Taken together, each of the facts included in the ad all have a similar recurring theme: a

capitalized disturbing font. The way each of the words are shown creates a cry for assistance.

Sandy Hook Promise presents these realities in an excellent style, while keeping the audience

intrigued and interested to find out more about the violence that is happening in schools today.

Finally, the commercial discusses how each of these acts are all preventable as “4 out of 5 school

shooters tell someone their plans” (00:47-00:52) and “70% of people who died by suicide tell

someone their plans or give some other warning signs” (00:53-00:59). Thus, the data provided in

the ad generates a disturbing feeling and alarming the audience to say something whenever these

instances might befall on them.

Finally, the advertisement channels the audience’s emotions from the start to the very

end. “Pathos, your emotional influence on an audience, is critical.” (qtd. in Paul 1). The

emotional way of a persuading argument can be extremely effective when it comes to

commercials. Like this advertisement about violent student acts, pathos is used from the very

opening to the close. Starting off with a boy being bullied, gives the audience a feeling of pain

and sympathy towards the boy. Between the first scene and the facts mentioned, there is a boy
who holds up a gun to the camera, which also channels the audience’s emotions as it causes a

sense of worry. Many questions might rush through the viewer's mind, such as ‘why does he

have that gun?’ or ‘where did he get that gun from’ and mostly ‘what he is planning on doing

with it?’ And then the audience feels the same about the girls, like the boy who is bullied,

between the pauses of each of the facts mentioned. The audience then has an emotional influence

over the user’s phone, when the ad states that a school shooter gives warning signs in tweets,

posts and in text. Since the intended audience is of a younger age group, children nowadays are

familiar with these social platforms and having something in common with what the commercial

talks about allows the audience to connect on a personal level, knowing that they can make a

difference from a social platform which they probably already have. Towards the end, the ad

shows different 20-minute sessions that say something provides, which leaves the reader with a

message that they can make a difference by just educating themselves. This advertisement does a

phenomenal job to grabbing and maintaining the audience’s attention it throughout the ad.

The mechanisms of emotions channeled, facts mentioned, and the scenes created by

Sandy

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Hook Promise urges the audience to learn more about this topic which has been more relevant in

schools nowadays, and to say something whenever the notice any of the signs given out by their

fellow peers. Changing between the facts stated and each of the girls is a powerful form of
persuasion using ethos and pathos. Sandy Hook Promise have been doing an amazing job raising

awareness about violent actions done my student ever since the sandy hook shooting.

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Works Cited

“Say Something to Prevent Gin Violence.” Youtube, uploaded by Sandy Hook Promise,

18 July 2016, www.youtube.com/watch?v=pBykpJ6nPsc.

Paul. “What beats a good argument every time? Pathos.” Magneto,

www.magneto.net.au/blog/persuasion-aristotle-pathos/. Accessed 20 November

2020.