The Curious Contradiction of “Humans of New York”

Brandon Stanton is staging a subtle protest on the streets of New York. In a city that is know by its skyline, its attitude and its mythology, he is capturing the faces of the humans of New York. Each portrait carries a caption, a story or a quote about the subject, and they are massively popular. Yet, for all the praise surrounding “Humans of New York,” there is something oddly inhuman about the project. Consider the popularity.

For every moment you spend looking at a portrait on “Humans of New York;” a person: a walking, talking rational animal, is being missed. Look at Mr. Stanton’s photographs. How many of his subjects are looking at a smartphone or a laptop? Yet his audience almost certainly must be, unless they have purchased his book. The portraits captured by Mr. Stanton are always agreeable, at least to the viewer. Even those portrait captions which speak of loss and pain bring about a strange happiness to the outside observer. What we encounter on “Humans of New York”, strangely, are not humans, for humans are often disagreeable or grumpy. Encountering a real human person means encountering a mystery. The grey old man lumbering towards me on the sidewalk may have the demeanor of Kris Kringle or of a mumbling drunk. Only time will tell. He could be a problem, for he is human. The life-coaches like David Brooks tell us to develop virtues for living, and to do this we must be uncomfortable. A “human” on “Humans of New York” will never make me uncomfortable. Yet the humans of Minnesota just might.

And there are humans everywhere. Mother Teresa insisted again and again that you don’t have to go to Calcutta to serve the poor. You don’t have to go to New York to find humans, they are all around you. There are humans of Minneapolis. There are humans of Washington.  There are humans of Pensacola. There are humans of Grand Rapids. There are humans of San Diego. There are humans next to you as you surf Mr. Stanton’s photography. I daresay there is a human near you as you read my compact essay. It may seem strange, but I implore you to stop reading and actually meet a human being. Meet a total stranger. Strike up a conversation. It might end well, it might end terribly…and that is precisely the point. We are all of us bound for heaven or hell. We weren’t told to have warm admiration for a portrait with a caption. We were told to love our enemies and love our neighbors. There are generally the same people: humans of our lives.