X

'Humans of New York' lands a Facebook video series

The popular blog that celebrates the ordinary people of the Big Apple will get a docuseries next week on Facebook's Watch, the site's new video platform.

Gael Cooper
CNET editor Gael Fashingbauer Cooper, a journalist and pop-culture junkie, is co-author of "Whatever Happened to Pudding Pops? The Lost Toys, Tastes and Trends of the '70s and '80s," as well as "The Totally Sweet '90s." She's been a journalist since 1989, working at Mpls.St.Paul Magazine, Twin Cities Sidewalk, the Minneapolis Star Tribune, and NBC News Digital. She's Gen X in birthdate, word and deed. If Marathon candy bars ever come back, she'll be first in line.
Expertise Breaking news, entertainment, lifestyle, travel, food, shopping and deals, product reviews, money and finance, video games, pets, history, books, technology history, generational studies. Credentials
  • Co-author of two Gen X pop-culture encyclopedia for Penguin Books. Won "Headline Writer of the Year"​ award for 2017, 2014 and 2013 from the American Copy Editors Society. Won first place in headline writing from the 2013 Society for Features Journalism.
See full bio
Gael Cooper
Humans of New York Trailer

Early on I realized that video would add a deeper layer to Humans of New York. At the heart of all these posts are the conversations themselves. I’m often deeply moved by the people I meet. Or they make me laugh. Or they make me think. And I always do my best to recreate the experience through photos and words. But I always knew that video would provide the closest thing to ‘actually being there.’ So for the last four years, I’ve filmed 1200 interviews on the streets of New York. (With the help of an extremely talented cinematographer named Michael Crommett.) Instead of posting these videos one day at a time, I held onto them so that one day I could combine them into something special. My goal was not to make a television show based on Humans of New York. I wanted the television show to *be* Humans of New York. I think I came pretty close. And I think/hope you will love it. Humans of New York, the series, will premiere next week on Watch-- Facebook's new platform for shows.

Posted by Humans of New York on Thursday, August 24, 2017

"Humans of New York," in which regular New Yorkers talk about their lives, is one of the best things about Facebook, in my opinion -- and I don't live anywhere near Manhattan.

Although it started out as a blog, the site has a popular Facebook page (with 18 million fans). That means you've perhaps seen friends sharing its posts in your News Feed. In the interviews, ordinary citizens discuss their relationships, their challenges, and their triumphs, however small -- a neat break from the overwhelming global news you can read anywhere. 

And as of next week, it'll have a 12-part Facebook video series on the site's new video platform, Facebook's Watch.

"Early on I realized that video would add a deeper layer to Humans of New York," site funder Brandon Stanton says on the site, adding that he's filmed 1,200 interviews over four years with the help of cinematographer Michael Crommett.

"Instead of posting these videos one day at a time, I held onto them so that one day I could combine them into something special," Stanton said. "My goal was not to make a television show based on Humans of New York. I wanted the television show to *be* Humans of New York. I think I came pretty close. And I think/hope you will love it."