One of my favourite things to do is meeting new people and hearing their stories. I enjoy understanding their backgrounds or getting to know their sense of humour. This trait is probably the reason I enjoy the Humans of New York blog created by Brandon Stanton. For those of you who don’t know, HONY is a blog devoted to cataloging portraits of people and archiving their stories.

Stanton recently did an instalment of photographs taken of immigrants who are seeking refuge in Europe, many coming from the Middle East and Greece. The photographs that were taken are some of the most moving material I have seen on the internet. It is impossible not to feel profound sympathy for these people who have gone through shocking horrors. One post that stood out to me is a woman who lost her husband at sea when the escape boat they were on capsized -his body was never found. Unfortunately, due to the incredible amount of illegal activity associated with the migration of refugees, there are as many horror stories about the journey to flee as there are stories about the places they fled. Stanton also spent a lot of time in Iran, but those pictures capture a more mundane, quirky, every day aspect of Iranian peoples lives, which I think was his intention. I believe he is trying to show that the Iranian people are just normal people and the prejudice placed upon them by the west is unjustified.

Stanton’s blog works with the idea of identifying people, making broad perceptions on an issue into a personal story- something that is easier to understand. These little chunks can either be amusing (if its a funny joke) or help people understand the scope of a crisis, like the work he did with immigrants. In fact, one of the main things Stanton kept pushing for in the blog posts he did from Europe was the support of an organization called The UN Refugee Agency (UNHCR). The UNHCR is an activist group that provides aid for people in need. While they have a focus on people in Syria at the moment, the UNHCR provides aid for a wide range of people. This is where the power of life narratives, specifically those that Stanton has chosen to broadcast, is seen. Stanton is coupling a personal story with a plea for aid. Essentially, because people feel emotionally connected with the person in the photo and their story, they are more likely to be compelled to donate and help that person. It is a brilliant and effective model.

I believe there is one hitch to the plan. When the instalment of pictures/ stories is current, this model is effective and powerful. However, once the instalment is over the cause it was fighting for is at risk of being quickly forgotten. This phenomena is only expedited by the medium that HONY uses: the internet, which is an ever evolving source of information. How can we turn a fleeting glance of a blogger into something that has a permanent impact?

While there is always room for improvement, HONY does an amazing job of getting large audiences to listen and acknowledge the life narratives of a diverse group of people. Stanton uses the power of life narratives to make a positive change, and that is something anyone can admire.