Most of the country is familiar with the cultural sensation and successful author Brandon Stanton, and his project: Humans of New York. Also known as HONY, this project gives insight to the lives of all of the diverse peoples that live in New York by pieces of a short interview accompanied by a picture of the individual. HONY has launched a new social fascination with raw humanity, and has made many people across the country want to follow in Stanton’s footsteps in their own city. University of Pittsburgh freshmen Sarah Thornton and Anish Kumar have taken the initiative to start their own project here in Pittsburgh! Her Campus Point Park sat down with the two students and got the scoop on Humans of Pitt:
Photos by Allie Duda
1. What made you want to start Humans of Pitt?
Anish – “I was sitting in Chemistry class, not paying attention, looking through Humans of New York, and I was just thinking it would be such a cool idea if someone did that at Pitt. Especially in Pittsburgh, I think there is a very diverse population; Pittsburgh is a really cool city so there are a lot of really cool people. I’m not really into photography, but Sarah, who lives on my floor, is really into photography. I texted her and said that she should start this because she’s perfect for this and she said, ‘Yeah, you should help me!’”
2. Do you find people all around Pittsburgh or just Pitt students?
Sarah – “We are definitely planning to expand; right now we are just getting people within walking distance because, well, I’m broke and have finals on Monday. I’m a Pittsburgh native and know the area very well and so we are hoping to expand.”
Anish – “I’m actually going to be here over the summer and she lives around so we are hoping to team up and go farther away from Oakland.”
3. What is the spirit of Humans of Pitt?
Sarah – “I’m a freshman this year, and as a freshman, you’re like, ‘Oh I’m in a school with 18,000 people, I’m going to meet so many new people,’ but you really don’t with that many people. It’s hard to sort of humanize everyone. So for me, the spirit of this is that every single person has a history, a past, something – a skeleton in their closet you don’t know about. For me it’s partly about finding that, and second of all, about giving people the chance to be heard. I think it’s really important to give voice to everyone equally. In a photograph on the internet, you can capture a person’s essence and create a space where they can speak uninterrupted. If you’re in conversation, it’s easier for quiet people to be talked over. But with this, it’s sort of an untouchable space.”
Anish – “Coming from a suburban town in New Jersey to Pitt and living in a city, it was really ironic that sometimes I felt like there were so many people around, yet you felt so isolated and detached from everyone. That’s why I really like this project, you get really up close and personal with someone who is a complete stranger, and you’d be surprised how within just five minutes you get into this really deep conversation where all of this personal stuff comes out. I really like the humanizing element of it, and how, in a city with so many people, sometimes you’re alone.”
4. How long do you plan to continue this project?
Sarah – “Ongoing?”
Anish – “Yeah, it’s kind of ambiguous now because we just made a page on Monday, and we were shocked by how it took off. We are very excited about it, but we have had no time to really make solid plans. I would really like to continue it through my time here.”
Sarah – “Right now we are hesitant to bring other people in. We’ve gotten a ton of messages with people saying how much they love it and asking if they can get involved, and this was spur-of-the-moment, Monday afternoon. My plan is to continue it as long as I can and maybe bring people into it as time goes on once we get sort of a tone and a vision.”
Anish – “Right, we want to kind of establish the page and have a foundation, have our vision out there before we—“
Sarah – “—hand it off to the next generation.”
5. What is something you’ve learned from this project? What is something you hope to learn in the future?
Anish – “Like I was saying before, I was so surprised by how quickly people are willing to open up to you. Even when I was looking through Humans of New York, I was thinking, if someone came up to me and asked me questions like these, I don’t think I would get this personal with them. So I was hesitant yesterday when we started going out, thinking it was going to be hard and we weren’t going to get anything good. But from the minute we started, [people’s] emotions really came out. I think they’re really willing to open up to you in that intimate setting. That’s something really cool that I learned and am definitely going to appreciate.”
Sarah – “Something that I’ve learned is sort of human resilience. I was out doing some work with it today, and I met a woman who has been a victim of five violent crimes, and is now married and has four children and is thinking about going back to school. She’s like 50 or so. I met a girl who was homeless for three and a half months when she was 17 years old and now she’s a student at Pitt studying communications. I met a guy whose younger sister has been in a wheelchair since she could operate one because she has muscular dystrophy, and she’s the valedictorian of her class. This has shown me such a broad scope of what the human spirit is capable of bouncing back from, and that has been the thing that has impacted me most greatly so far. What I hope to get out of it is more of a chance to create that space where people can speak. I think that’s the soul of Humans of New York: here’s this person, here is who they are in their essence.”
Anish – “What’s been most striking to me and something I really hope we can convey is that often, you can look at someone, and you can never really understand what goes on—even someone that you know. We actually interviewed some people on our floor who we know pretty well, and it’s striking how much comes out that you never expected was there. I think that’s the really important lesson to learn. Often you know a person, but you don’t really know everything that’s there and everything in their history that’s made them who they are. A lot of those elements are really important to understanding them on a different level.”
6. What do you want people to know about Humans of Pitt?
Sarah – “It’s not about Humans of Pitt. If you’re reading it, you are the Humans of Pitt. It’s not about the page and it’s not about this persona that we’re creating. It’s about the dynamic that exists in Pittsburgh. That’s what it’s about.”
Anish – “I don’t want it to be seen as another chapter of Humans of New York. Pittsburgh is so unique, I want the page to be a representation of Pittsburgh, all of the diversity and people of Pittsburgh. I want the essence of this project to really be the essence of Pittsburgh.”
7. Do you think that this is going to encourage other people in other cities to start this, if they haven’t already?
Sarah – “Maybe, and maybe other college students. Once we started the page, we got a bunch of messages of people saying they were thinking about starting it. So do it, you know? Grab your camera, grab your iPhone, it does not matter, and sit down and talk to someone. Find someone sitting alone and just chat.”
8. What if Brandon Stanton gets word of this? What would you guys do if he messaged you about it?
Sarah – “Pray he doesn’t sue us. “
Anish – “I think he’s very supportive of it. One of my friends goes to William and Mary, and I think she’s involved in a project there, and she just told me today that he’s planning on visiting their chapter next semester and planning on talking to them about it. If that happened to us, that would be so awesome.”
You can find the Humans of Pitt Facebook page here to keep up with all of their updates!