We chose a classic scene featuring a commuter taking a picture of someone blatantly hogging the reserved seat on the train, instead of giving his seat to someone who needs it more. Singaporeans have increasingly taken to expressing disapproval and shaming inconsiderate commuters on citizen journalism website STOMP or other platforms, but this problem-solving method remains questionable.
In this photo, we used low aperture to draw the phone screen into tight focus and blurred the background so as to create the illusion of depth: the phone is closer to the audience while the background seems further away. This draws attention to the words on the phone screen. The photo is shot from the first person perspective to depersonalize the stomper and invite the viewer to take his perspective, conveying the message that most of us could be guilty of this.
We continued our superhero motif on this image through illustrations on the phone that make it look like a superhero pager out of a comic strip. This frames the message more positively by encouraging an alternative– that the viewer should choose to be the hero, speaking up in real life, instead of being an online vigilante (or, undesirably, ‘keyboard warrior’).
