A few years ago, I discovered a page on Facebook called Humans Of New York, run by Brandon Stanton. Brandon takes photos of people all around the world (not just New York anymore), and allows the people to say whatever they’d like. He then takes their words and captions their photos, then posts them online to his Facebook page. After discovering this page and reading just a few posts, I was immediately hooked and couldn’t stop reading. Here are my reasons why:

HONY gave me an inside look on people’s personal lives:

Now, as shallow of a reason as this seems, I’m a relatively nosy person. I like to get the inside scoop on what’s going on at all times in people’s lives. Through HONY, I am able to seemingly get to know people through a single photograph- or sometimes a series of photos- and gain insight onto major events that are occurring in their lives.

HONY creates a greater sense of community:

Although there are definitely great disagreements in some of the more opinionated posts by HONY, many times there is a huge sense of unity in the comments section. I think it’s a great thing that people are able to come together from all over the world to focus in on one person and their situation. People are able to sympathize, empathize, laugh, and cry together based off of one single photograph posted on the internet.

HONY allows me to travel:

As Humans of New York grew and continues to grow, Brandon is able to travel all over the country and even the world to gather people’s stories. Now, even outside of America, I can gain insight into global issues, different cultures and ways of life, and immerse myself into an entire new place that I’ve never physically been to. Nothing beats getting to know people through a single picture of them and their caption and getting such a personal look into their lives.

HONY allows people to heal:

In many of Brandon’s photographs, the subjects open up so deeply about their hardships, heartbreaks, illnesses, family issues, and more. Brandon takes time to listen to their stories and shares them with the world. Simply having a listener as they talk helps people to heal, as they let go of some of the pain they had been previously holding in. Some of the subjects in the photo even get ahold of the post online and are able to see a massive amount of positive comments waiting for them, further helping the healing process.

HONY is inspiring:

The entire concept behind Humans of New York is incredible to me. Before HONY, I never would have thought people would be so willing to open up to a complete stranger and then allow that stranger to post it all over the internet for millions of people to see. Even more than that, I never would have thought such a huge overwhelming sense of positivity would come out of it. HONY truly allows people to come together as a community- not just a community of people from New York, or just America, but the entire world. It significantly decreases stereotypes and discrimination, it provides an inside look into global issues, and it creates a complete sense of love and encouragement throughout HONY followers.

I thank Brandon Stanton for his incredible amount of time and effort that he must have put in while building such a strong community. I thank him for his complete lack of discrimination, his heart that must be full of so much love, and for his immense support for people all over the world.