Humans of New York annoy me

          Yep, I'm back again for some good old fashion hating. For those of you who don't know, Humans of New York is a Facebook group that aims to tell the stories of New Yorkers "One story at a time". It does this by posting a picture that is presumably the person or people the story is about and then leaves a small caption that explains their "story". Sometimes these captions are long and extensive, explaining a very detailed story for us all to revel in. But often it's not. Instead we are treated to obfuscated nonsense like "It constantly depresses the shit out of me that we have to die", cut to a picture of a man on a bicycle cab sitting down and you too can be a self patronizing asshole who likes to indulge in pseudo meaningful nonsense. My point is simple: that isn't a story. Hell that isn't even productive. Yet people rush over to the post, shower it in likes, while engaging in what could only be described as an emotional circle jerk.
          My true bone to pick with Humans of New York doesn't stem from the people posting. I believe most people who post are trying to vocalize their story any way they can. I feel the readers are the ones who fetishize these posts, consuming them as if they are emotional and insightful porn. Why I feel Humans of New York encourages a shallow consumption of the human experience is because often the stories are syncopated into short blurbs to keep up with the pace of life of the average 21st century college student. The observer doesn't engage with the story because there isn't enough to engage with. When someone says "My stepdad was always demanding that I respect him. Yet he didn't respect me at all," I still know absolutely nothing about his story. That story could be mapped onto anyone with a step dad and while many might be saying "that's the point", I find this lesson in universality to be redundant. It only takes a few "universal points" to prove to me that the human experience can be similar across the board. I thought I was learning this kids story, but clearly I'm not. I don't know anything about his situation with his step father or why his step father shows him no respect. I don't know how this kid is struggling with it and how it has affected him. I don't know what respect manifests as in the mind of this kid. In fact I know absolutely nothing about his story and I gain nothing from this blurb other than the common adage that "to get respect one must earn it (or give it, or something like that)." Yet people keep flocking to these posts, sharing and re-posting. Why? It's because it makes us feel better. These posts aren't about the people posting them, but about us. We want to engage in what we think is a high level of emotional vulnerability without actually dealing with the details that makes the emotional vulnerability so frightening. We want to gain spiritual understanding without even drudging through the difficulties of conceiving life's important questions. We want wisdom without ever understanding the true gravitas of that wisdom as it occurs in the real world. And Humans of New York gives us all of that with no emotional commitment (or reading commitment) required. Even the comments are self serving, often finding a way to insinuate that the commenter had already had that knowledge or experience and this post just confirmed it.
      I want someones story to be juicy. I want the details to run down the sides of my mouth like the juices from a freshly peeled Orange. I expect recoil and difficulty as I sift through scenarios I have never been in. And empathy on my part requires true concentration because I must truly try to put myself in the shoes of another, not merely assume we've been wearing the same footwear.


For your entertainment I made some HONY submissions of my own. I'm not sure if they'll make the cut though.

I used to be afraid to stand up for people. Now that I'm older, I still don't stand up for anyone. 

Follow your dreams and perhaps you can live an average life with an average job, but hey at least you have a college degree. 

Sometimes people ask, what's around your neck. I just ignore them 

As a kid I wanted to be a doctor. Now that I'm an adult, I've decided to be a lawyer instead.