'Humans of New York' Is Suddenly a War Report From Iraq

My favorite thing on the internet might be your favorite thing, too. As of right now 8.8 million people “like” it on Facebook. Humans of New York, the photo blog and Facebook page run by Brandon Stanton, is a bulwark of hope in what sometimes feels like an onslaught of despair. And as of yesterday, it's operating from a warzone.

In case you're not familiar, Brandon takes a photo of a stranger on the street (usually in New York City, but notably sometimes as far away as Iran) and posts a snippet of conversation with the subject. Somehow this snapshot manages to capture a whole life, and with it parts of our lives, too, our hopes and dreams and sorrows.

The comments section of HONY’s Facebook page is without a doubt the best place on the internet. People are understanding. They are loving, kind, they give each other the benefit of the doubt. The photos and their descriptions help us to understand each other---how our differences disappear under closer inspection, how our pains and struggles and moments of pride are universal. Humans of New York teaches us that every person on the street has a story worth telling. A story worth listening to. I realize this sounds cheesy, but Brandon's Humans of New York experiment is impenetrable to snark. It's cynicism's kryptonite.

That’s why right now Brandon is travelling with the U.N. on a World Tour. This is not the first time he has partnered with the U.N.: he spoke at the 37th UNIS-UN conference last year. Brandon announced this trip on Wednesday, writing: "The point of the trip is not to "say" anything about the world. But rather to visit some faraway places, and listen to as many people as possible." While visiting 10 countries, Brandon will be helping to promote the eight Millennium Development Goals that U.N. member states hopes to achieve by 2015, among them eradicating child poverty and hungry and encouraging universal primary education.

Commenters have suggested he name the tour Humans of the World, but Brandon is the first to point out that it "would be rather foolish to claim that these portraits and stories somehow represent 'the world,' or humanity as a whole." But, like the snapshots he shares, this glimpse at a part will speak volumes about the whole. He writes, "we hope this trip may in some way help to inspire a global perspective, while bringing awareness to the challenges that we all need to tackle together."

Two days ago he traveled to Iraq. Yesterday morning EST he posted three photos from Irbil, in Kurdistan. Two such photos broke my (and 8 million other people's) heart. One shows a smiling man in a wheel chair, his underdeveloped legs resting atop a box. This is the caption:

“My happiest moments are whenever I see my mother happy.”
“What’s the happiest you’ve ever seen her?”
“When I was a child, some German doctors told us that I could have a surgery in Italy, and my legs would work again. She was so happy she started crying. But I never had the money to go.”

The next photo is a close up of the man's phone, his hands and feet out of focus in the background. On the screen is an image he photoshopped of his face onto a healthy body, "to see what I would look like." Read the comments on that image if you want to have your faith in humanity restored.

And then last night reports began coming in that the Islamic State of Iraq and Syria had taken towns just miles from Irbil. Brandon didn’t post anything for four hours. I held my breath. I re-read his comments about where he would be on his U.N. tour, hoping for a sign that he was no longer in Kurdistan, even while part of me thought: please let him be OK and give him the strength to photograph the people under siege.

Now the U.S. is bombing northern Iraq. Suddenly, Brandon is a war reporter. This morning he posted from Dohuk, Iraq. The weathered face of a man confronts Brandon's lens straight on, a magnificent white mustache below eyes frank with concern. The caption reads: "There were dozens of them and only four of us. They took all my sheep."

Last night, as news was coming in that the U.S. was dropping food and water to the stranded Yazidis trapped atop Sinjar Mountain, starving, with only bullets to greet them below and exposure and thirst above, Brandon posted a photo of three Yazidi boys playing in the dirt in Dohuk. Their parents, he explained in the caption, were just out of frame, panicking about their family trapped in the mountains. Brandon continues:

I found them banging on some cans. I asked them what they were doing. "We're building a car," they said.
"Isn't that cute," I thought. "They're imagining the cans are cars."

When I came back 5 minutes later, they had punctured holes in all four cans. Using two metal wires as axles, they turned the cans into wheels, and attached them to the plastic crate lying nearby. They'd built a car.

Stay safe, Brandon. The world awaits your dispatches, for we know that as long as you find yourself there someone is capturing the humanity at the heart of war.