HONY: How it makes you rethink all that you have been told by the Media

If there's something I loathe, it's Facebook. Meaningless updates about trivial things like "look at my new haircut" and a huge display of relationship dramas nestled in between advertising that could not have been targeted more incorrectly. But recently, I changed my mind.

I discovered Humans of New York almost a year ago, and probably only liked the page because it was appearing popular in my network and never paid it much attention after that, until I was extremely bored one day and clicked on the link, and I have to say I probably spent at least two hours reading every. single. post.

For context, Humans of New York, now more commonly known as HONY, was created in 2010 by a photographer Brandon Stanton. He set out with a goal in mind to "make an exhaustive catalogue of New York City's inhabitants."
Soon after, HONY evolved to become a piece of journalistic brilliance made up entirely of a single portrait photograph, and a caption with a quote from the subject. Ingenious.

Though an incredibly simple concept, this organisation has blown up so massive, it's gathered a good 8 million followers on social media, including Facebook and Tumblr, in fact, the more snobby bloggers out there might be surprised to find out that the official blog for documenting this is actually Tumblr itself.

What is it about this that is so great, I hear you ask. Well, honestly, I think you need to read it to really understand the beauty in this but I will break it down as easily as I can. This blog is about people. And only people. People in their simplest, or most complicated form. It gives complete strangers a voice, a personality, favourite colours, and annoying siblings I didn't know existed. But the most incredible part of this story only began to happen a few months ago.

What was Humans of New York, is now, HONY on UN tour. For 50 days, Brandon will travel 10 countries across the globe and do what he does best. Photograph, and talk to the people there. So far his journey has consisted of Iraq, Jordan, Republic of Congo, Kenya, Uganda, Sudan, Ukraine, India and Vietnam. The final country hasn't been released yet.

The globalisation of this blog is not only clever, but it is incredibly brave. For a young American, he's making some serious risks by visiting war torn countries or worse still, places of past hatred for Americans and the western world alike. I cannot tell you how pleased I was to see posts from Vietnam appear, not only because I grew up there for a little while, but mostly because at least a few Americans have a distorted view on Vietnam. I find it fascinating that Brandon, an American, can sit down and talk to old men and listen to their stories from their side of the conflict, which happened on their soil, ruined their buildings and crushed their homes. Iraq, also, a place we are bombarded with propaganda about how dreadful it all is and the people are there, it's mind boggling being faced with a photograph of an elderly couple from Iraq captioned, "We just want to be together and not be afraid." HONY as humanised conflict, and as such, given a flip side to the mainstream media's accounts.

One of my favourite examples is a portrait of a man, and the caption: "After they beat me, I heard shots. And I walked to the shop next door, and found my neighbour dead on the floor. He was one of the nicest men in the town. Every day he would put out food for the cats. I would tell him: ‘You must stop feeding the cats, they are overrunning my shop.’ But he would never stop feeding them. He would tell me: ‘I have to feed them. Or they will die.’"
(Zaatari Refugee Camp, Jordan)"

So here are a few links, I urge you to check it out and remember, we are all people. We all break bones and have lost loves and friends we like to share pepsi with. Regardless of where we are from.

http://www.humansofnewyork.com/

https://www.facebook.com/humansofnewyork?fref=ts

and here is his twitter, too:
https://twitter.com/humansofny