By Lily Patterson ’16 | Staff Writer
Making the world laugh in six seconds is second nature for Evan Breen ’06.
Breen is known for comedy videos on the social media app Vine, where he currently has 1.1 million followers. Despite his success in this area, Breen said he did not originally intend to pursue a career in comedy or acting.
“This was a total accident. I meant to go into business, and I just couldn’t mentally do it,” Breen said.
After graduating from South in 2006, he went to Western Michigan University where he dropped out halfway through his sixth year.
“I didn’t really know what I wanted to do in college, so I finally just stopped taking classes,” Breen said.
After dropping out of Western, Breen worked odd jobs and found himself bored most of the time. Then, he came across a video on Twitter that redirected him to the Vine app.
He began making his own Vines, feeling content if he got 20 likes on a video. Suddenly, his videos became more popular.
“Two or three big accounts revined me, and I hit 1000 (followers) and then 5000, and then I started taking it more seriously,” Breen said. “It happened kind of overnight, and it’s still really odd. It makes me kind of uncomfortable sometimes.”
Breen said people often recognize or approach him when he is out in public, which is something he is still not used to.
“It makes me uncomfortable having people always coming up to me,” Breen said. “I’m not very extroverted or animated. Whenever people meet me in person, I feel like they’re disappointed.”
Although he can sometimes be spotted in Grosse Pointe, Breen moved to Los Angeles, Calif. when he was 25 and now goes back and forth between Grosse Pointe and L.A.
“L.A. is so different. Here, the expectation is you get an education, you go to school, like college or trade school,” Breen said. “Out there, it’s more realistic to actually doing what you want, and that was kind of a weird thing.”
Most of Breen’s work is done through social media and therefore can be done in either location.
“Most of the work I do is on social media, and it’s kind of on my own terms. I don’t really have much of a schedule or very many commitments,” he said. “To me, it gets kind of depressing, getting money for not doing anything really structured.”
His work on social media extends beyond his popular videos on Vine. He, along with writer friends of his, get together for hours at a time to sit and write together, writing scripts to pitch to networks as pilots and ghost writing for parody twitter accounts..
Although he has always been interested in comedy, Breen never actually participated in any comedy-related events when he was at South.
“I always wanted to be on SNL and I was obsessed with Second city, but I never really did anything about it,” Breen said.
A friend of his started Second Suburb, a comedy show focused on South staff and students, which he badly wanted to be a part of but was stopped by his stage fright.
“I didn’t want anyone I knew to ever watch me. I still can’t get up on stage. I’ll probably eventually have to do it, but I have really bad stage fright,” Breen said.
Although he never participated in theater at South, he took two or three acting classes with drama teacher Meaghan Dunham and would occasionally do improv at local theaters.
Breen said he does have fond memories of his time at South playing hockey, golf and baseball and although he understood what he was being taught in his classes, he always had some difficulty completing his schoolwork.
He preferred writing on his own to any kind of work that he was assigned.
“I guess I just kept doing my own thing, which is writing, and it eventually paid off,” Breen said. “It’s weird how it all kind of fell into place.”
He now spends most of his time doing what he enjoys, writing. Although he still enjoys Vine, he prefers writing for other platforms.
“Vine was cool because it taught me a lot, and initially it was super fun,” Breen said. “It still is, but I like writing a lot more. It’s more fulfilling. You get more out.”
Breen said he enjoys making videos for Vine but knows that it won’t last forever.
“It’s fun I guess. I just know that this Vine thing isn’t permanent, so I’m trying to utilize the window while I have it,” he said.
As much as he enjoys what he does, there have been times when Breen wished he lead a more typical life.
“I remember I told myself that I just want a normal job, that I just want to work at a desk or work a day job, and have hours, and get married, and have a kid and a dog, and just be normal” he said.
Overall, he is proud of what he has been able to accomplish on his own, though he wishes he would have at least finished college. He plans to go back to school since he only has 12 credits left for his degree, Breen said.
“Despite everything that I’ve done, I think, if you have the opportunity, going to college or finishing it is really really important,” he said. “If you finish high school and don’t go, it’s so difficult to actually go in your mid-20s or 30s.”
