Humans of New York creator talks hard work, humanity at Roots Tech

SALT LAKE CITY — At 19 years old, Brandon Stanton had dropped out of college, done a lot of drugs and felt like an absolute and utter failure.

Fifteen years later, he’s the creator of arguably the world’s “most followed” photography project: Humans of New York.

Stanton spoke Thursday morning to hundreds of attendees at the 2018 Roots Tech conference — a family history and technology event held annually in Salt Lake City — about the process of creation and hard work that led to Humans of New York.

Humans of New York, in its simplest form, is a Facebook page featuring photos taken of random people from the streets of New York with quotes from conversations Stanton has with each person.

The quotes offer a glimpse into the hilarity and tragedy of humanity, and the project has resonated so thoroughly with so many that Stanton has since expanded the project to include people from countries around the world.

“People were interested in the stories of those around them,” he said.

The project currently has over 25 million followers on social media and spawned two New York Times bestselling books. In the last few years, the Humans of New York audience has crowdfunded over $10 million for various causes featured in the series, including $4 million for pediatric cancer research.

But at its genesis, Humans of New York looked very different from what it is today.

After losing his first job, Stanton moved to New York with nothing but a camera and the glimmer of an idea.

“Notice that the idea that I risked everything for, the idea that I committed myself to 100 percent, looks nothing like the idea that later became successful,” Stanton told conference attendees.

“If you want to do something big, if you want to make a big change in your life, you cannot wait for the perfect idea, because that will never come.”

For several months, Stanton posted pictures of people who caught his attention on the streets of New York, but, though he diligently posted every day, the Facebook page wasn’t garnering a lot of attention.

Then one day, Stanton photographed a woman dressed all in green. While he was unhappy with the result of the photo, he remembered something funny she had said and decided to post the picture with the caption.

The photo garnered more likes than any other post, and Stanton decided to pivot the project’s focus to interviews with the subjects of the photos rather than mainly photography.

“Make hundreds of small evolutions along the way and trust that you will become who you need to be and the idea will become what it needs to be along the way,” Stanton said. “We fill our time, not with activities that nourish us, but with activities that we think will make us important in the eyes of other people. What we don’t notice is that time itself is the most important resource.”

Stanton has since traveled to 30 different countries and has interviewed everyone from children in the streets of Iraq to former President Barack Obama.

While many of the questions he asks are probing and personal, Stanton says that most of the interviewees choose to answer, often telling him stories they haven’t told their own family.

People don’t often ask each other questions because they feel uncomfortable or they’re worried about respecting others’ privacy, Stanton said.

“If you have a friend who’s going through a divorce or a drug problem or something like that … ask them how they’re doing, because everybody else is trying to respect their privacy too, and nobody’s talking to them about it, and they’re carrying it around,” Stanton said.

“When I stop and I ask these people about their lives, I’m the only person who asked. … Sometimes the only thing they have to offer is their story,” he added.

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