Have You Ever Wondered How It Would Feel To Be Featured On Humans Of New York?
By Joy Villa
Producer’s note: Someone on Quora asked: What is it like to be featured on Humans of New York? Here is one of the best answers that’s been pulled from the thread. Thank you to the team at Quora for making this happen!
It feels amazing! I was approached while walking with my boyfriend in NYC last summer by a high energy tall, lanky guy with a Nikon camera. When he asked if he could take out photo, we smiled, wearing our Leica cameras on us ourselves. Of course, this was the day I decided not to were any makeup…hmm! But we heard him say he had a blog on Facebook where he would post this. We thought nothing of it, having never heard of “Humans of New York” yet. He asked us one question, “How did you guys meet?” Which I chose to answer as truthfully and to the point as possible. “He kidnapped me a year ago and has been taking me around the world ever since.”
He was super nice, full of energy, and took 2-3 pictures of us before handing us his card. It all took less than 5 minutes. We thanked him and continued on our walk as if nothing happened. (This was, after all, New York!)
The next day, we found his blog, which had almost a MILLION likes on Facebook! We were utterly shocked! He had told us it would be up in a day or so, as he had some pictures from Russia to post first. We patently kept checking then found our photo!
It had racked up 17k likes, and over 300 comments, all within a few hours. It was incredible. The amount of traffic on that photo blew us away! I received re-shares and posts of my friends tagging me, writing “Hey I know someone on HONY!!” and telling me “Congratulations!”
Here’s the original link on FB: Timeline Photos – Humans of New York | Facebook!
This was such a rush, the attention was a total high. My BF and I laughed at a lot of the comments, which played out like a comedy show some of the time: “Is she really kidnapped?” “She may possibly be a minor!” “Should we call the police?” until someone found my page and posted it. “Look guys, she is OK and heres her website! Aww they are a real couple!”
The photo below shows us that fateful day, when Brandon took our HONY picture. The biggest comments were “I love her shows!” and “he looks like Dr. Who!” Among all the mostly positive and “I love this couple!” “Take me away, too!” were a few who commented on our age difference, and how he looked like my “Sugar Daddy!” It was super entertaining and overall made us feel really good to be apart of such a cute, awesome cultural sensation.
Now we tell the story when we do lectures and talks — us both being traveling artists ourselves. It’s definitely a life changer, and one hell of a heartwarming story!