**Brandon Stanton opens up on the struggles that shaped "Humans of New York" — Transcript & Summary | SozAI**
Source: https://sozai.app/transcript/brandon-stanton-struggles-humans-of-new-york/

CBS Mornings profile of Brandon Stanton, creator of Humans of New York, covering his struggles with addiction, his rise through photography, the project's fundraising impact, and his book Dear New Yor

## Key Takeaways

- Humans of New York's greatest impact lies in the human connections and comfort it created, not just the money raised.
- Vulnerability and struggle are what make people connect, and Stanton's own history of addiction and failure shaped his work.
- Stanton's project demonstrates how a personal crisis can lead to a meaningful creative career and philanthropic impact.
- Stanton himself finds it difficult to share his private life despite prying into others' lives professionally.

## What the video covers

- Brandon Stanton introduces Humans of New York, a photography project featuring thousands of stories from everyday New Yorkers, now spanning about 15 years.
- Stanton says the project's most valuable impact is the millions of small moments of comfort it gave people through connection with strangers.
- He still approaches strangers on New York streets and is often rejected, with 'no' being the most common answer.
- In interviews he goes deep, often spending hours making people comfortable enough to share vulnerable stories.
- Stanton reveals his own history: he flunked out of college, was addicted to Adderall, and lived in his grandparents' basement while feeling like a failure.
- He later worked as a bond trader in Chicago, clinging to that identity to hide shame, and after being fired turned to photography as a lifeline at age 26.
- Humans of New York went viral on Facebook after about three years, and the project grew to millions of followers and roughly $20 million raised for various causes.
- The project helped save Mario O's Pub in New York during the pandemic through a fundraiser, and it helped a mother who became a successful scone shop owner.
- Stanton's fifth book, Dear New York, is a love letter to the city with proceeds donated, scheduled for release October 7th with nearly 500 pages.
- The segment closes on the theme that connection comes from sharing struggle rather than success, and that pain can be a teacher and purpose driver.

## Chapters

1. 00:00 Introduction to Humans of New York
2. 00:32 Project impact and connection
3. 01:42 Approaching strangers and rejection
4. 02:43 Stanton's complicated private life
5. 03:43 Addiction, failure, and Chicago finance career
6. 04:46 Turning to photography and moving to New York
7. 05:27 Viral growth and fundraising
8. 06:26 Saving Mario O's Pub and community impact
9. 07:27 Dear New York book and closing reflections

Answers

## Questions about this video

What led Brandon Stanton to start photography?

After being fired from his bond trading job in Chicago, Stanton had a moment of reflection about what he wanted to do next. He had been photographing for about two months and used the camera as a life preserver during a difficult period.

How did Humans of New York help Mario O's Pub?

Stanton featured the pub's owner, Mary, on Humans of New York, and suggested a scone fundraiser. The orders raised nearly a million dollars in six days, saving the pub during the pandemic.

What is Dear New York about?

Dear New York is Stanton's fifth book, described as a love letter to the city told through the stories of its people. All proceeds from the book are being donated.

## Full Transcript — Download SRT & Markdown

00:00

Speaker A

Excuse me. Uh, I was wondering if there was any way I could take your photograph.

00:04

Speaker A

You may have heard of Humans of New York. The Firestorm photography project that began in the infancy of social media and since has featured thousands of photos and stories of everyday people.

00:20

Speaker A

I'm an artist and photographer. I run a website called Humans of New York. It's also five books. But even if you're familiar with the work, it is likely that you aren't as familiar with the man behind it, Brandon Stanton.

00:32

Speaker A

Tell us what Humans of New York has accomplished since the beginning to now. Well, um, I mean, there's several metrics to measure it. I think by far the most valuable point, I think, and I hope it's these hundreds and hundreds and

00:49

Speaker A

hundreds and hundreds over the course of 15 years, millions of little moments between somebody on one side of a computer screen and some stranger on the streets of New York City that gave them some sort of comfort.

01:06

Speaker A

Excuse me. I was wondering if there's any way I could take your photograph. To this day, Brandon walks around the streets of New York City looking to interview and photograph total strangers. And despite being at this for 15 years now, he still gets rejected.

01:20

Speaker A

I'm actually good. Okay, let's start. No, that's no problem. Don't apologize. No is the most common answer I hear.

01:25

Speaker A

But when he does get a yes. Yeah. Okay. He goes deep. What is your biggest challenge in life right now?

01:33

Speaker A

My biggest challenge right now is to stay in the moment. Brandon will often spend an hour or two with someone, making them comfortable enough to tell their story.

01:42

Speaker A

Had a situation in the last year with my son. It definitely challenged me as far as, uh, having a faith that I'm going to be, everything's going to be okay. What we learned about Brandon after spending a couple of hours with him,

01:58

Speaker A

excuse me, is the man who is able to compel people to share their most vulnerable life moments often struggles to do the same.

02:06

Speaker A

You did say it is interesting that I constantly am exposing other people's lives. When I expose, is a strong word.

02:15

Speaker A

Okay, exposed. What would you say? How do you say it? Um, where do you find the irony?

02:20

Speaker A

Yeah. Well, it's, uh, then I'm constantly, um, pressing for greater and greater amounts of specificity, whereas in, you know, with my private life, but again, I think a lot of it comes. Well, finish it. Finish it with my private

02:33

Speaker A

life. What, uh, well, with my private life, there is a, a boundary, um, across which we do not go.

02:43

Speaker A

But on this day, we did go there. And as it turns out, the man behind the lens may be as complicated as the humans he speaks to.

02:52

Speaker A

When I was 19 years old, I was a real screw-up. Uh, I flunked out of college.

02:57

Speaker A

I was a drug addict. Um, very much so. And I kind of hit rock bottom, and the only people who would take me in were my grandparents, who I barely knew. Um, it was on my biological father's side of

03:08

Speaker A

the family. This is in Georgia. Yeah. And so I was living in their basement. Uh, I was working as a host at Applebee's, watching all my other friends go to college. And, um, just feeling very much like a failure.

03:21

Speaker A

What kind of drug were you addicted to? Adderall was my bad one. Um, when did you start?

03:27

Speaker A

High school. Uh, everybody had a prescription. Who got you hooked on it? Oh, I got myself hooked on it, but, you know, there's a lot of drug addiction in my family. Eventually, Brandon got clean and went back to school in Georgia, where

03:40

Speaker A

he grew up. And with that came an opportunity to work in finance in Chicago.

03:45

Speaker A

To me, bond trader was the opposite of screw-up. Do you know what I mean?

03:50

Speaker A

It was such. Yeah. And so, when I got that job, I clung on to that job and that title and that identity. And when it started going bad, my mental health really started going down, because I needed that to cover up so much shame

04:06

Speaker A

about who I was. Yes. Gotcha. And so when I finally got fired, I had this moment where I was like, "Okay, all of this thought energy that I had trying to be somebody is now dissipated, and I can ask myself, what do I want to

04:23

Speaker A

do?" And at that time, I'd been photographing for about two months. I got the camera as kind of a life preserver to try to, you know, keep myself above water, because work was going so bad. At 26 years old, Brandon

04:38

Speaker A

moved to New York with the ambitious goal to take 10,000 photos of the humans who live here.

04:45

Speaker A

In the early years of Humans of New York, you know, maybe I wasn't moving towards something like I thought I was.

04:51

Speaker A

Maybe I was running from something, and the times where I would just want to lay in bed and just stay in bed. Um, what was it that got me off the mattress? Was it this desire to connect millions of people, or was it the fear

05:09

Speaker A

that I was a screw-up? After 3 years of scraping by, one of Brandon's photos went viral on Facebook, and the rocket ship that would become Humans of New York took off. I was just trying to hang on, and then this wave came up underneath

05:27

Speaker A

me. I'd only been photographing for 6 months. A year later, millions of people were following it.

05:33

Speaker A

With millions of followers also came millions of dollars. We have, uh, managed to, you know, raise 20 million for various causes. And, um, but, you know, I think by far the most valuable point, the, I don't think my contribution and

05:51

Speaker A

impact in the world will ever be measured by money, but money is part of human's legacy, because it's that money that's transforming lives. I have this regular, and he walked in, and she got up and she, like, stood her heels

06:06

Speaker A

on the rung of the bar stool, and she was like, "You saved her. You saved her." And then she goes, "And you saved all of us as well." And she was just... We did our interview with Brandon at Mario O's Pub in the East Village of

06:19

Speaker A

Manhattan, a business he helped to save during the pandemic after featuring the owner, Mary, on Humans of New York.

06:28

Speaker A

The mother of six was known locally for making delicious scones, and Brandon suggested they start a fundraiser to sell them. A million dollars' worth of orders later, Mario's pub was saved, and she went on to open a now successful

06:45

Speaker A

scone shop. So, so important, like what he did. Mary's story is not unique. Humans of New York gave me a megaphone that went internationally. He raised almost a million dollars for us in six days.

07:04

Speaker A

Everybody knows us. You know, I think he just kind of exploded it. You know, people say it all the time. You know, I saw you on Humans of New York. I read your story. I mean, that's it. You know,

07:14

Speaker A

that's it. I mean, what more can you say? I don't know at what point Brandon decided to do a fundraiser for me. I was working paycheck to paycheck, eating out pennies. And so, uh, it enabled me to

07:27

Speaker A

pay cash for this house. Now, around 10,000 interviews and photos later, I can, I feel it?

07:35

Speaker A

Yeah. And it looks exactly like that. I love the look of it. Brandon has come out with his fifth book, Dear New York, and all proceeds are being donated.

07:45

Speaker A

So, my first book sold almost a million copies. I'd only been photographing for two and a half years, and I really wanted to go back in time and make a book about New York City now that I really, really

07:58

Speaker A

know what I'm doing, so that it could be polished and everything that I want to say about this city. So this book, very simply put, is about what? It's my love letter to New York, I guess, through the

08:09

Speaker A

stories of its people. You feel like the vessel I'm trying to be. Here's my two cents. Without Brandon's struggles, there probably would have never been a Humans of New York. Pain can be our greatest teacher and our best

08:24

Speaker A

purpose driver. How would I describe Brandon? I look at Brandon, the Humans of New York guy, and then I look at Brandon Stanton, the human being. Um, give me a minute.

08:43

Speaker A

Brandon allowed me to see myself in a way that I had never been able to glimpse.

08:53

Speaker A

Whatever he's getting out of this, I wish him 10 times more, because he's a good man trying to do good things. And that's rare.

09:01

Speaker A

I I think I heard of you. Yeah. For me, a big thing is what does God want me to do? And my answer to that is use my work to somehow provide comfort to somehow improve the lives of other people to create moments

09:18

Speaker A

of connection as opposed to how far am I? How much further can I go? The words that are coming into my mind right now as I listen to this are thank you pain.

09:29

Speaker A

Thank you pain. Yeah. And cuz I say if you can find somebody's struggle, you can find their genius because you find the thing that they've pushed up against, they've thought about that has kept them awake the most at night. When you find that

09:42

Speaker A

spot in somebody, you normally find the thing that they can tell the world that's different than everybody else.

09:50

Speaker A

[Music] So well said. I've said it before and I'll say it again. We humans connect when we share stories with each other about struggle. Not success, but struggle. And this project, Humans of New York, proves that out.

10:10

Speaker A

And it also proves it's not hard to be nice to people. David, look what look at all the good things that have happened based on the work that Brandon has done.

10:18

Speaker A

I love what the man said. A good man trying to do good things. That's rare, but it shouldn't be rare.

10:22

Speaker A

And you're right. I actually think books like this point to the direction of it not being rare. And speaking of books, the beginning of your life is just a chapter.

10:30

Speaker A

You can keep writing. Yeah. You can create new chapters. He said he was down and out, addicted to drugs.

10:36

Speaker A

And look where he is now and what he's doing. That's incredible. You know, it's really similar actually to the Dan Hurley book we were talking about earlier. Coach Hurley down and out at one point in his life, now at the

10:45

Speaker A

very top of the basketball world. Uh you've got Brandon Stanton down and out now at the very top of of arts, photography.

10:51

Speaker A

This was really good, David. Beautiful thing. David, thank you for connecting us once again.

10:57

Speaker A

Thanks, guys. And congratulations on the new digs. Yeah, we like the new digs. We like them.

11:02

Speaker A

All right. Brandon Stanton's book, Dear New York, will be out uh on October 7th and features nearly 500 colorful pages of photos and stories.

Topics: Humans of New York Brandon Stanton street photography New York City storytelling addiction recovery philanthropy Dear New York CBS Mornings personal growth

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