In my attempt to create a blog post, I turn towards the masters of blogging — daily bloggers. Among the myriad that exist on the interweb, I am particularly drawn to one — Humans of New York (HONY). This blog offers ‘“daily glimpses into the lives of strangers in New York City.”

In our first class, we were asked, what are life narratives? From one standpoint, HONY is the very definition of this term. In particular, a recent post features a woman from Odessa, Ukraine, who initially refused to pose for a photo but after a conversation with a passerby, she agreed. In the post, the passerby had told the woman that she should not refuse a photo because she must represent the women of her land. In this instance, I thought it was powerful reminder of how we must continually work towards breaking down preconceptions about different cultures. As well, I think part of the appeal of HONY is its succinctness and its capacity to evoke emotions of nostalgia or empathy or solidarity such as with the story of a woman who had been raped. In recounting the stories of strangers on the street, HONY gives voice to the ordinary (and the flawed). Ultimately, this unites people globally in a sort of universal experience.

However, as much as I enjoy reading this blog, I believe that we need to think critically about what this blog does in terms of identity and voice which are often at the core of life narratives. For example, are the individuals featured given credit for their stories? What are the implications of such stories for identity politics? In terms of identity, these posts have a Western centric audience — their posts are written in English and in order to garner likes and retweets, they must appeal to an audience with a certain set of values. A post from Jammu, India, presents a woman who claims that arranged marriage is slowly declining in India and that ‘love marriages’ are becoming more popular. While this may the truth, this story was hand-picked. The creator of this blog has the right to decide which stories get posted and the fact that this story was published is consistent with Western ideals of gender equality. For feminists of the West, this is a win and could be an indicator that their ideals are peculating across the globe. Thus, a consequence for identity politics is that identities are being brought into commonness — people are able to empathize because these stories are made relatable despite cultural traditions. In a single week, at least five posts are about fathers, mothers, sons, daughters without specific names. There was a post of when a father told of the time he was most proud of his son, a post of a son who told his mother of what he wanted to be most when he grew up. As much as these stories give voice and value to everyday life narratives, there is a filter in place. This reduces the quality and the credibility of the story being told. While no names are posted to protect the identities of these individuals, it also remove credit from them when their names are no longer attached to these stories.

HONY are life narratives — they tell one of the many stories in the lives of ordinary people. However, the remove the identity and the voice of the people who these stories belong to and to this end, I think we need to conceptualize ways to restore them while still achieving the success that HONY has had with raising awareness about the different life narratives that exist in the world.