How I Write: Brandon Stanton, Creator of Humans of New York

Host: David Perell
Guest: Brandon Stanton
Episode Date: November 12, 2025

Overview

In this engaging episode of "How I Write," David Perell welcomes Brandon Stanton, creator of the renowned storytelling project Humans of New York (HONY). Together, they explore Stanton’s unique journey as a writer, photographer, and interviewer who reinvented biography for the social media age. They discuss the evolution of HONY, the craft of deep interviewing, the alchemy between photography and prose, and the discipline it takes to create art rooted in truth and empathy.

Key Discussion Points & Insights

The Evolution of Humans of New York

• Origins as a Photography Project:
  Initially, HONY was intended to be a visual catalogue of 10,000 New Yorkers, capturing the city's diversity through candid street photographs.
  (02:21 Brandon Stanton)

  "I was going to photograph 10,000 people, and I was going to kind of recreate the city through that. Through the course of doing that, I kind of stopped and had short conversations with people about their lives...the interviews grew much longer. They became much more forensic, trying to learn deep themes and arcs about people's lives."

• Writing Becomes Central:
  The project shifted from snippets and quotes to in-depth stories. Writing took on a significant role, making Stanton “a channel and less of a source” for other people’s narratives.
  (03:37 Brandon Stanton)

  "My art was better—the less of me that was in it, the more that I was a channel and less of a source. ...I very intentionally removed myself from the work because I thought it was better that way."

The Street Interview: Craft and Vulnerability

• Unique Interview Process:
  Stanton describes HONY interviews as singular: starting from zero with total strangers in brief, often awkward encounters, and aiming to create a safe environment for deep truth.
  (04:44 Brandon Stanton)

  "My craft is in a very short amount of time with a person who might be a little nervous about talking to a stranger, to create an environment and a framework with which I can learn as much about their lived experience as possible."

• From Colorful Characters to Universal Stories:
  The focus moved from eccentric-looking individuals to uncovering profound, universal experiences within ordinary people.
  (05:47 Brandon Stanton)

  "I started to kind of take pride in photographing inconspicuous looking people and drawing very deep stories out of them."

Photography vs. Writing in Storytelling

• The Limits and Power of Images:
  Photographs can’t capture the full truth; they are “a truth, not the truth.” Words allow deeper context, nuance, and understanding.
  (06:31 Brandon Stanton)

  "...photos are gorgeous...because it can catch you in these kind of unguarded moments. And there is a truth to that, but it is not the truth. It is a truth."

The Search for Truth

• Extracting Truth:
  Deep truth in interviews emerges slowly, with initial responses guarded by cliches or personas. The interviewer must gently chip away at surface layers.
  (09:06 Brandon Stanton)

  "Truth is often spoken haltingly, with pauses, like it's being dug up one spoonful at a time from somewhere deep."

• Parallel with Writing:
  Perell observes this mirrors the writing process, which often starts in discomfort and generality before finding authenticity.
  (12:40 David Perell)

  "Good writing doesn't usually begin with the truth. It begins with discomfort. It begins with uncertainty. ...But eventually, good writing, good editing through work, you finally get to the truth."

Distinctive Voice: The Holy Grail

• Singular Voices and Stories:
  Stanton seeks not just unique experiences, but people who describe life in original, striking ways.
  (14:53 Brandon Stanton)

  "There are some people with great stories, meaning the events of their life are singular. And then there are people with singular voices, meaning the way that they describe things, the way they turn a phrase is very singular. When you have those two things married together...it is absolute magic."

• Tanqueray Example: (16:59, 17:00 Brandon Stanton)

  "My stripper name was Tangare. Back in the 70s. I was the only black girl making white girl money...Nothing but guidos with their pinky rings..."

Editorial Process and Active Listening

• Interview as Editorial: Stanton often ‘writes’ the story in real-time by listening for “the heat”—the emotional core or struggle—then shaping follow-up questions to dig deeper.
  (19:25 Brandon Stanton)

  "I just listen very intently. And when I have those lean in moments, like, that's kind of a proxy for the audience...when I really get hooked in and roped in, then I know that this is where the interview is singular."

• Finding Struggle = Story:

  "If you can find somebody's struggle, you will find a plot, find what this person is pushed against, find what this person has overcome, and you will have a story with a plot. Then you will also have transformation...and then you also have wisdom."

Presence, Intensity, and Trust

• Energy in Interviews: Much of the magic lies in the energy Stanton brings—extreme presence and genuine interest, which elicits openness and candor.
  (21:26 Brandon Stanton)

  "...I like to think that when I'm having a conversation with somebody for Humans of New York, I'm just extremely present, trying to understand what it is like to be this person."

• Honoring with Intensity:
  His seriousness honors the dignity of everyday people’s stories, which are as meaningful as any Fortune 500 founder’s.
  (23:55 Brandon Stanton)

  "...I take it very, very seriously. I take every person in front of me deadly serious. And that's part of the power, I think..."

Truth, Self-Deception & Editing Our Own Stories

• Pushing Past Self-Constructed Narratives: People edit their own life stories for self-protection, omitting truths that don’t fit their self-image.
  (28:11, 28:57 Brandon Stanton)

  "It's like...we craft these, and you have to—I try to be careful with myself, and I'm guilty of the same thing. Everybody is..."

• Role of Interviewer/Editor:
  Follow-up questions break through practiced stories and lead to synthesis or new interpretation, helping people access parts of themselves they usually keep locked.
  (30:25 David Perell)

  "The mind...is this mansion, but there's a lot of trap doors...that we actually lock. ...A lot of what you're doing when you're editing...is getting us into the parts of our minds that normally we have locked."

• Not Just About Pain—Also About Hidden Heroism:
  Many people, especially selfless ones, “close the doors” to their own achievements. HONY gives them a chance to recognize and celebrate their heroism.
  (31:28 Brandon Stanton)

  "It's not just people closing the doors to versions of themselves that make them seem less admirable. It's also selfless people closing the doors to themselves that make themselves seem more important or more praiseworthy."

The Influence of Social Media Algorithms

• Freedom in Book Form:
  Algorithms dictate what works on platforms, often favoring longer engagement. For his book, Stanton felt liberated from these constraints and could experiment with brevity and nuance.
  (34:12 Brandon Stanton)

  "The book freed me from the algorithm...there are very certain things that work in the algorithm...Beautiful thing about that book is 75% of those stories were not posted online."

Dialogue, Voice, and Editing

• Interview as Reflection:
  Every story holds a residue of the interviewer; stories are a co-creation reflecting both participant and interviewer.
  (36:59 Brandon Stanton)

  "She came up to me and she said it was interesting to see the parts of me that reflected you...So in a way, all of these have just a touch of autobiography in them."

• Adapting Energy to Context:
  Stanton emphasizes the importance of modulating one’s presence and energy to connect with diverse people across different settings.
  (37:32 Brandon Stanton)

  "...to be able to switch between those two energies is a big part of why this work works..."

Everybody Has a Story

• Earned Truths > Packaged Wisdom:
  People who believe they have nothing to say often reveal the deepest, most authentic insights—“everyone has something to say if they'll tell the truth.”
  (40:27–42:58 Brandon Stanton)

  "...the bad interviews aren't the people who have nothing to say. It's the people who have so much to say, but none of it is very deeply earned."

The Role of Discipline and Output

• Persistence over Inspiration:
  Stanton credits relentless daily work—photographing and interviewing four people each day for years, reading 100 pages per day in earlier years—as the true foundation of HONY.
  (43:17 Brandon Stanton)

  "...decided I was going to root my identity and how much I worked and the amount of work I did every single day...so much of Humans of New York...all of the inspiration, all of the iteration came out of being there and doing it every single day."

• Democratizing Inspiration:
  Hard work, not talent, is democratized and universally available.
  (44:09 Brandon Stanton)

  "...the one thing that you can be proud of without ego is the amount of work that you do, because that is something that is freely available to everybody."

Learning the Craft

• Everything is Allowed if Done Well:
  Reading both fiction and nonfiction widely (150–200 novels in recent years) helped Stanton see that any technique or style can work if executed skillfully.
  (46:38 Brandon Stanton)

  "Anything is allowed if you do it well...it's so helpful to ground your creative process in the act of creating every single day and not some act of what is good and what is correct."

• Oral Tradition and Cadence:
  Writing that flows like speech—rhythm, repetition, the cadence of spoken word—lends the stories authenticity.
  (49:49 Brandon Stanton)

  "...in my head I'm always coming back to the rhythm and cadence of spoken word because that's one, how stories were shared for millions of years and two, how they've been shared with me for the last 15 years of my life."

The Structure of Stories

• Plot as a Clothesline:
  Drawing from Aaron Sorkin’s metaphor: stakes and plot are the “clothesline” that holds the story together, while details and character moments are the clothes.
  (59:04 Brandon Stanton)

  "...there's gotta be stakes and there's gotta be plot. Aaron Sorkin taught me that. I learned a lot from Aaron Sorkin. He describes the plot of a story as the clothesline..."

• Empathy & Shared Humanity:
  True empathy relies on considering how one might be similar if one had lived another’s life, not just on perceived similarities.
  (63:47 Brandon Stanton)

  "...if I had gone through all of these same things that this person went through, I would be a lot like them."

The Long Game: Art, Not Content

• Rooting Identity in Process: Sustaining creativity requires rooting your sense of self in the doing of the work, not in external outcomes or validation.
  (67:08 Brandon Stanton)

  "...if you root it in any sort of thing outside of your control, like people's reception, you will just run out of gas before you get there. You have to root it in the doing of it..."

• "You are a writer because you write"

  "If you wrote for an hour a day, you're a writer. Congratulations. And if you've won Pulitzer Prizes, but you haven't written in a year, there's a 16 year old girl writing in her journal that is more of a writer than you are. It's the process of doing it."

Notable Quotes & Memorable Moments

• On Truth in the Interview (09:06 Brandon Stanton)

  "Truth is often spoken haltingly, with pauses, like it's being dug up one spoonful at a time from somewhere deep. Truth feels heavy, it has gravity. It's usually not floating on the surface."

• On Removing the Self as Author (03:37 Brandon Stanton)

  "I very intentionally removed myself from the work because I thought it was better that way."

• On Distinctive Voice (16:59 Brandon Stanton)

  "My stripper name was Tangare. Back in the 70s. I was the only black girl making white girl money."

• On Presence being Transformational (21:26 Brandon Stanton)

  "...when you have somebody being that present and that engaged with you and trying to figure out your life, I don't know what it is that it unlocks..."

• On Discipline (44:09 Brandon Stanton)

  "The one thing that you can be proud of without ego is the amount of work that you do, because that is something that is freely available to everybody."

• On Empathy (63:47 Brandon Stanton)

  "...when you meet someone new, no matter how different they are from you, you might have at least a sneaking suspicion that had you been born in their shoes and walked their path, you might be a lot like them."

Timestamps for Key Segments

• Evolution of HONY from Photography to In-Depth Storytelling: 02:21–05:47
• The Nuanced Truth in Interviewing: 09:06–13:18
• Singular Voices and the Magic of Storytelling: 14:53–17:00
• Editorial Process and Active Listening: 18:33–21:26
• Energy, Presence, and Emotional Investment: 23:55–26:24
• Pushing Past Cliche and Telling True Stories: 28:11–31:28
• Freedom from Social Media Algorithms: 34:12–36:05
• Identity and Presence in the Interviewer's Role: 36:59–39:58
• The Power of Ordinary People's Stories: 40:27–42:58
• Persistence and Daily Output as Foundation: 43:17–46:38
• Oral Tradition and Rhythm in Writing: 49:23–51:36
• Empathy and Shared Humanity: 63:08–66:01
• Craft vs. Content: Rooting Identity in Process: 67:08–68:30

Conclusion

This episode is a rich meditation on the mechanics of storytelling, truth, and empathy. Brandon Stanton’s approach dismantles the myth that artistry is about talent or insight alone; it’s about relentless curiosity, editorial discipline, and above all else, honoring the singularity of every human voice. For writers, interviewers, and lovers of story, Stanton’s insights are a generous masterclass in how to find meaning—one interview, one photograph, one truthful moment at a time.