Savvy Psychologist: This week we’ll talk about how to talk to strangers and with us is the expert. Brandon Stanton is the creator, photographer, and interviewer behind the acclaimed and wildly popular blog, Humans of New York. His new book is Humans of New York: Stories. Brandon, thank you so much for being on the show.
Brandon Stanton: Thank you.
SP: People are truly moved by your work. Plus, they love it. You have 16 million likes on Facebook and, as of a few weeks ago, two #1 New York Times bestsellers. Why do you think Humans of New York is so compelling?
BS: I think there is a sort of paradox of one seeing a picture of somebody on the blog that you do not know and that you have never met before and represents a stranger to you, but then at the same time, you’re hearing a story or a quote from them that is very intimate and very revealing and is indicative of something that they might only tell their best friend or someone very close to them. And so I think that combination of seeing a photo of somebody that you know nothing about except for this—one kind of very vulnerable or intimate piece of information—is a very powerful combination.
You have to earn the comfort through being uncomfortable many, many times.
SP: I think you get the specific and universal at the same time, it sounds like.
BS: Right.
SP: Usually getting to know someone happens, 1.) gradually, and 2.) reciprocally, but you’ve turned this on its head. How do you get people to tell you intimate details in a short amount of time and, I’m assuming, without matching their level of disclosure?
BS: Right, I’m trying to think: gradually and reciprocally. Well, it’s definitely not gradually and, like you said, I’m normally the one that asks the questions so maybe I’m not reciprocating.
SP: Exactly.
BS: It’s something that is very intangible, but I think it just kind of comes down to energy—and the energy that I’m giving off is not of a stranger. It’s very hard to describe. But I’ve had people follow me around before who were journalists and after I finish talking to one of my subjects, they would move in and ask questions about the experience. And the tone shift between the conversation that I had with the person and the conversation that the journalist had with the person was very noticeable to me, and it kind of shined a light for me on why I think it is that people get so comfortable. It’s that the conversations are very conversational. They aren’t questions like, “So what do you think about this?” and “What do you think about that?” It’s like I almost start talking to them as if a relationship had already been established, as if we knew each other for a very long time and again, it’s not something that I learned. I think it’s just something that, in approaching 10,000 people, I reached a degree of comfort and a degree of ease in conversing that possibly brings out a reciprocal level of ease and comfort in the other person.
SP: This is actually a perfect build-up then because you’ve said in previous interviews that the successful approach is all in the energy and that the worst way to approach somebody is to be nervous. But one of the hardest things to do in life is to approach and meet new people.
BS: Right.
SP: Like you said, you do this everyday and you’ve approached 10,000 people, so what advice would you give on how to approach someone new?
BS: Oh, I mean you just have to earn it. You can’t really be given advice, you know. I was already somebody who I thought was pretty good at interacting with people, but even those first months that I was on the street-stopping strangers, I was so scared every time I walked up to somebody. There’s something about approaching someone and the possibility of being rejected that inherently makes you nervous. And I just had to do it so many times that I had seen all the different outcomes that could possibly come from approaching a stranger on the street so nothing scared me anymore, nothing frightened me anymore. There were no longer any unknowns. I had seen it all. I had seen every possible reaction that a stranger could have to me by approaching them on the street, so there was nowhere for my imagination to go and create this kind of anxiety in me. I had seen it all before, I knew that I could handle it, and so I got to the point where I could just approach people very comfortably without any worry or anxiety about what their reaction would be. And that could only be earned. And so I would just have to tell people that if you want to talk to strangers and if you want be comfortable talking to strangers, the only way to do it is to approach strangers while you’re uncomfortable. You have to earn the comfort through being uncomfortable many, many times.
SP: So you have to go through the fear, it sounds like, not around it.
BS: Exactly.
See Also: The Psychology of Why We Love Humans of New York
SP: The title of your new book is Humans of New York: Stories. Why are the stories important?
There is enough drama and comedy and emotion and love in the life of every person to formulate a story that will captivate millions of people.
BS: Well, the blog started as photography; it was very photographically centered. When I first moved to New York, my goal was to take 10,000 photos of people on the street. And I wasn’t having conversations with the subjects. I wasn’t getting quotes from them. And then I realized, after a while, that I was already approaching these people. I was already getting over the discomfort of engaging with a stranger, so why not go the natural next step and find out a little bit about this person? Find out who they are.
And so I started including quotes from the people that I was photographing, and then suddenly those quotes turned into longer quotes, and then it turned into 30- or 45-minute interviews that I have with each subject I stop. And the goal in those interviews is to find out a story that that person can tell me that I haven’t heard from the other 10,000 people I’ve stopped. That’s what really my interview process centers around is asking the questions that I need to ask in order to locate a story that happened in that person’s life that is compelling. And if every single person has a story that—if told with enough attention to detail—could be compelling to an audience of millions of people and that is what my blog is based on: that principle that there is enough drama and comedy and emotion and love in the life of every person to formulate a story that will captivate millions of people.
SP: Some social psychologists theorize that we sympathize with and feel compassion for others to the degree that we perceive they’re like us. But, so most of the people that we see on Humans of New York are not only strangers, but are often really different from us. So how do you account for the connection people feel with the pictures and the stories?
BS: Maybe it’s because I describe the difference in enough detail that it can allow someone to imagine being in that situation. For example, I was interviewing Syrian refugees and those Syrian refugees could probably not be having more polar opposite experience than my average fan, who is probably sitting comfortably in a two-story home somewhere. But I took so much time to learn these people’s stories and to recount them in a sort of detail that almost allows you to experience their lives vicariously in almost a first-person sense that maybe that allowed people, even though it was a very different experience, to place themselves in that experience and see how a different set of circumstances could possibly land them in that same place.
SP: And that imagination, imagining yourself in someone else’s place, why is having empathy for strangers important?
BS: I mean, that’s kind of getting into a moral field. I think the more you are able to identify with somebody else’s experience and struggles, the more you are able to interact with them in a sympathetic manner. The more that you are able to work out problems with that person because you’re seeing them almost as on the same plane as you, as opposed to some sort of enemy or some person to be feared, and there could be more collaboration there. You know, that’s really in the realm of preachers and priests, I think, to tell us why it’s important to love one another and have empathy for one another. But you know all I can speak to is the ability of telling a very detailed story about someone’s life to create that empathy.
SP: And then, finally, let’s apply this. How do you think we as humans can have greater empathy for strangers?
BS: I mean, I think it’s the most simple thing in the world: just learn about them, right? And I think the Internet’s already doing that. It’s already creating these sub-communities that reach across boundaries, and reach across barriers and borders that allow people to connect on other grounds besides nationality, and I think that, inherently, it has a pacifying effect in the world. I think it’s just a greater flow of information and, hopefully, storytelling has a role in that, too.
SP: That’s perfect. Brandon. Thank you so much for being here. After reading all the stories that you get from people, it’s great to hear your side of the story.
BS: Well, thank you so much.
SP: Brandon Stanton is the creator of the photo blog, Humans of New York, and, most recently, the author of Humans of New York: Stories.
You can purchase a copy of Humans of New York: Stories on Amazon, Barnes & Noble, IndieBound, Books-a-Million, or Apple.
For more on the popularity of Humans of New York, check out The Psychology of Why We Love Humans of New York. Then be sure to head on over to the Savvy Psychology Facebook page and share how HONY has affected you.
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