Commentary by Hailey Skinner
Humans of New York (HONY) has been tugging at heart strings, bringing on the water works, and leaving hearts all warm and fuzzy since photographer Brandon Stanton began it in 2010. What started out as a desire to capture photos of the happenings in the concrete jungle and the lives of the New Yorkers who call it home, became much more. On the HONY blog Stanton admits that “somewhere along the way, HONY began to take on a much different character”. Now each photo includes a quote from the subject of the photo. This is where the heart string tugging, water works, and warm fuzzies come from, these quotes give glimpses into the lives of complete strangers, which is both fascinating and thought-provoking.
If you’re like me you’re the kind of person who has an insane curiosity about the lives, thoughts, dreams, and stories of others. And so if you’re a HONY fan I can clearly see why. You should definitely keep on keeping up with Stanton and his incredible mission that started in New York City, and has recently traveled to countries across the globe.
BUT I have a question for you: Yes, it is interesting to hear about the lives of people 1,192 miles away, but what about the people you pass in the hallway every day? What about the people you’ve never even met yet consider your “Titan Family”? True, you’ve probably seen some of their twitter usernames, instagram captions, and favorite filters, but there is so much more than what is advertised on a computer screen. How about the teachers who stand in front of you all year long? In middle school we all realized that teachers do have a life outside of school… but how do they spend that life?
These are the questions that motivated us — members of Titan TV and the Titan Scroll — while working on the “Every Titan Has a Story” convergence project. It might not be as legit as the HONY blog, but I promise you the LSW Titans are just as interesting as New Yorkers.
While scrolling through the videos, photos, and stories about your fellow classmates, we hope you actually stop to read and learn something new about the faces you see everyday. Maybe you’ll not only put a name with a face, but a story or fun fact with both a name and face. Everyone you pass on a daily basis has a story, some hopes, some goals, and a few disappointments, wouldn’t it be kind of cool to learn about what those are?
Our biggest hope is that you walk away a little more educated about the people around you and a little more motivated to learn about the hundreds of stories we didn’t get the chance to share with you through this project.
Photo by Abbey Stoetzel
