Humans of New York and the Cavalier Consumption of Others | Hacker News Reader

Humans of New York and the Cavalier Consumption of Others

newyorker.com

35 pointsprismatic17 comments

Humans of New York is catered for the "small time media" generation. People don't have attention span of a 20 minutes deep article or photo series. They want to see and read a tiny story in their Facebook feed and feel good about it. HONY serves this purpose.

John Stewart recognized this and started his new show based on this type of media consumption. [1]

[1] http://www.hollywoodreporter.com/live-feed/jon-stewart-heade...

tl;dr: The journalist doesn't like HONY because it presents individuals as simply "humans", without a group-based social critique. He prefers books where the writer sets out to reveal the hardships of the underclass, and where the photos serve as illustrations of that general point. Having decided that that is a virtue, he criticizes HONY for pairing the photos with stories of the individuals themselves.

I think your tl;dr is unjust. I read the author as criticizing the imposition of a simple story onto the nuanced experiences of people. I think he criticizes it for the lack of artistic subtlety (pictures are not allowed to speak to the reader by themselves) and also for the effect that ignoring social structure has on the way the art is consumed.

He decries the "read, get emotional cookies, and forget" effect of the simple "uplifting" narratives of every day people. The consumer of the art must think no further than one person's experience.

Photography never "speaks for itself"; photography is usually a pretty heavy-handed imposition of meaning through the use of composition, tone, framing, editing.

To call photography subtle is incorrect; it's a violent imposition of meaning onto the subject, by the photographer.

Interesting point of view. And when it comes to photography of humans, it's pretty difficult to take a photo without having the act of taking a photo affect the subject, both in how they are depicted, how they feel, and the impact of publicity.

I saw three different photos from three different sources of the same scene from the Palestine-Israel conflict. They told wildly different stories.

I disagree, I think that tl;dr was spot on. Frankly, the article's authors position is classic and arrogant imho. They define what art is and hold it to that standard, ignoring that Stanton himself was simply building a project (a photography blog turned storytelling blog as he and the article puts it).

I'd ask the author - How is this any different from an exhibit at a museum? Because I see essentially the same thing when I go: people standing in front of something, taking it in, taking a photo of it (yuck), moving to the next piece and repeating.

The New Yorker tends to have this classicist view of the world, that's their angle and I understand it and the place for it, I just don't like it when it is used for to paint this cynical view of a disposable consumptive world.

Hope that wasn't a rant (and it was not directed at you, I know you're trying to frame the authors position as well which I'm rallying against).

Isn't the answer to your museum question is in the article? The author values the ambiguity of an image, rather than having it pre-packaged to a and consumable concept that the "story" gives it.

I don't really get his beef, to be quite honest. To me the true crime (albeit a minor infraction) of HONY is that it's not much more than a Gotham-based localization of the much more interesting and long-standing Colors publication, publishing since the 90s

You are right, but this is Hacker News, where technical intelligence is high and cultural intelligence scarily scarce.

I was the subject of one of Stanton's photos. While I admired his site at the time and what seemed like a commitment to free speech, I've since watched him sell out when it suits him.

HONY is a sandboxed version of New York and New Yorkers, and the political stands Stanton takes are cheap shots. He is more bond salesman than reporter. I'd be happy to see his credibility in a million little pieces.

Could you please give some examples? I understand the cultural criticism in the original post, but it seems extreme to me to wish ruin on someone because of their photography project.

Does the HONY project change the world, or does it help the world stay the same?

Does it increase the empathy of its viewers, leading them to make changes in their lives to benefit the HONY subjects, or people like them? Or does it just feed people's self-satisfaction about how empathetic they already are, by giving them a gift-wrapped simple story to "like" every day, and pretend they really did something?

Is reading HONY an act of consumption or an act of expression? Unlike reading a book, everything about consuming the HONY project on Facebook is publicized to your friends and family. They can see that you follow it. If you like, share, or comment, it gets pushed to their newsfeeds. Like any activity on social media, it's not just shaping who you are, it helps you construct your public identity: the mask you want other people to see.

Even the paper books can be seen through this lens. Are they popular because they provide stories that are notably better or different from what can be read online? Or are they popular because they tell the right story about their owner by sitting on the book shelf or coffee table?

Some of each. And increasing empathy has rewards all down the line; not just to benefit the HONY subjects. Its education.

Not one link in that entire blasted article.

http://www.humansofnewyork.com/

Come on, New Yorker, get it together.

Humans of New York has always reminded me of Jacob Holdt's work, http://web.archive.org/web/20150811101439/http://american-pi...

HONY tends to remind me of Vivian Maiers' work.

http://www.vivianmaier.com/

https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Vivian_Maier

Oh! I love her stuff, her craft reminds me a lot of Arbus but less vulnerable

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