I love Humans of New York (HONY). Initiated in the summer of 2010 by Brandon Stanton, HONY is a photoblog and bestselling book featuring pictures and interviews with people of New York City. According to Stanton, he started HONY because he “thought it would be really cool to create an exhaustive catalogue of New York City’s inhabitants.” His initial goal was to photograph 10,000 New Yorkers and plot their photos on a map.
“Somewhere along the way, I began to interview my subjects in addition to photographing them. And alongside their portraits, I’d include quotes and short stories from their lives,” Stanton explains, adding, “Taken together, these portraits and captions became the subject of a vibrant blog. HONY now has over ten million followers on social media, and provides a worldwide audience with daily glimpses into the lives of strangers on the streets of New York City.”
The pictures are beautiful. The copy, which is generally just a couple of sentences, is powerfully honest and often emotion evoking.
HONY is compelling, relatable and revealing. And some how, some way, HONY seems to really bring out the best in the people who follow it.
I follow HONY on Facebook. Not long ago, there was a picture and interview with a young man who reminisced about his deceased father. This young man shared that he didn’t have a close relationship with his dad because while the family had routines, they never really had conversations. He added, “During the last year of (my dad’s life), when he was really sick, he played solitaire in his office for six hours a day. My main memory of him is his silhouette reflecting off the wall of the corridor by the light of his computer screen.” There are more than 1,300 comments in response to this single post. For the most part, the comments seek to reassure. They are filled with compassion and encouragement. Someone named Ry Runge, for example, posted, “I’m sure he loved you more than you will ever know.” And yet another person commented, “Sorry for your pain.”
For this post and almost every HONY post, the comments are a validation, of sorts. The comments let the profiled person know: I see you. I hear you. I care about you.
The pictures and interviews by themselves are amazing. But when combined with the frank and sensitive comments left by fellow humans, the photoblog in its entirety is really a thing of beauty.
I know there are bigger stories around HONY. There is the picture and interview with a young student that inspired the $1.4 million fundraising campaign for his Brooklyn Middle School. I’m also aware of Humans of St. Louis and a related story of a community pulling together to support a family that is working to restore a dilapidated home. But it’s the more personal and tender moments that have captured my attention. I’m not sure why.
What I do know is that we all too frequently focus on what’s wrong with the world, our communities and ourselves. It’s uplifting to see such positive and tender interactions between humans.
I’ll also assert that through HONY, Stanton reminds us of our capacity to support and encourage our fellow humans and he fosters opportunities to demonstrate that capacity via “Likes,” “Comments,” and “Shares.” As Humans of Wherever, we have been afforded that same opportunity. It’s up to us to take advantage of it.
Life After Ted 
