'HUMANS' AND THE ART OF STORYTELLING
Photography by Rakhee Bhatt
“What’s your greatest struggle right now?”
This is the opening question that Brandon Stanton asks complete strangers for his world-renowned blog Humans of New York.
Stanton was not always so direct with people. He first started his blog with the intention of creating a photographic census of New York City that would comprise images on a map. Over time, he began incorporating one-sentence quotes underneath each photo, then he progressed to adding small paragraphs, until eventually his posts became deeply candid and intimate stories told from the people in front of his lens. Now, Stanton is celebrating 10 years of Humans of New York with the release of his third book, Humans, in which he chronicles the hundreds of individuals he has interviewed and photographed from around the world——all while directing his forthright question as a conversation starter.
“Every person has a story because everyone has a struggle,” Stanton writes in his book. “The heart of a story is the struggle——the obstacle that has been faced, and hopefully overcome…It’s where the story begins. It’s an opportunity for reflection, and understanding, and growth. Great stories never end with the struggle. They always end with the person.”
Humans was a labor of love for Stanton. After devoting two years solely to interviewing New Yorkers, he decided to travel to Iran in 2012. Since then, he has visited over 40 countries like Argentina, Indonesia, India, Japan, Mexico, Poland, Rwanda, and Spain to talk with random people that he spotted on city streets, all hailing from different age groups and walks of life. While Stanton has upheld his mission to storytelling in each location, he found that the biggest struggle he faced was the language barrier.
“So much of the oversees work is due to the one hundred interpreters that I was able to work with that not only were excellent and proficient in English, but also extremely caring and extremely good with people,” said Stanton during a virtual launch for his book.
Stanton’s work with these interpreters has opened the door for readers to experience these global stories. Within the pages of Humans, there are lighthearted stories that bring laughter, as well as those all-too-relatable ones that confront the truths of everyday life. Some of the stories dive deep into loss and grief in all its forms, while others describe the ecstatic joys and pleasures of life. Several stories talk about those who overcame insurmountable barriers, and some cut straight to the heart in retelling the most abject horrors against humanity.
While many of the stories that Stanton writes appear for the first time in his book, some have been told over the years on the Humans of New York Instagram, which currently boosts 11 million followers. One story that Stanton first shared for his social media followers is that of Tanqueray, a New Yorker who unabashedly recounted tales of her life, including her years as a burlesque dancer in the 1970s, over the course of three posts in November 2019. The stories went viral and people were asking for more. Nearly a year passed with no news. Then this past September, Stanton posted an update about Tanqueray, whose real name is Stephanie Johnson, divulging that her health had taken a turn for the worse. He wrote that he would be sharing Johnson’s entire life story in a series of 32 posts, spread out over the course of a week, in order to raise money for Johnson’s medical expenses and care. Stanton set up a GoFundMe campaign with an initial goal of $300,000 that would go into a trust. By the end of the week, the fund had accumulated over $2.6 million from 127,000 donors, with people sharing how much Johnson’s story impacted them.
“It was funny because I don’t take myself serious in anything I do,” said Johnson during the virtual book launch. “I appreciated the fact that people were telling me, especially younger people, that they’ve had a hard life——they’ve made some mistakes where they drank or did pot or whatever——but reading my story gave them the courage to try to correct their bad habits and go forward, and make the best out of life. That made me feel really good.”
Johnson is not the first person that has been supported by Stanton’s philanthropic efforts. Through the Humans of New York Patreon, followers can contribute $1.50 and up each month, with the resources allowing Stanton the ability to not only take his work to different countries, but also to help those he interviews along the way. There was the story of a man who had adopted his son from Taiwan and expressed a desire to adopt a sister for him from the same orphanage. Stanton gave them funds from Patreon to cover the adoption fees. There was the food seller in Nigeria who——despite not having a place to sleep himself——gave away all his goods to prisoners because he himself had once been falsely imprisoned and given no food. Stanton helped him return to his village and enter seminary. And then there was the woman from Ghana who had been brutally and sexually assaulted as a teenager, became pregnant, and was cast out by her family as a result. 20 years later, she told Stanton that while she had found some sense of peace, she had not found healing. So, Stanton used the money from Patreon to get her sessions with one of the best therapists in Accra.
“I think the things we brag about, or the things we post the most on social media, are actually kind of the things that separate us,” said Stanton. “It’s when somebody’s talking about their pain or their struggles or their isolations——that’s kind of the connective tissue…I think that when people allow themselves these moments of honesty and these moments of candor to let other people in on their pain, it reaches through whatever gulf there might be in the universe——however many miles they are away from their reader——and bonds them to this person who has also shared that same experience.”
Humans by Brandon Stanton. St. Martin’s Press. Available here.
Originally published on November 6, 2020
