Humans of New York is a pretty uncontroversial fixture in our social media lives. Photographer Brandon Stanton has been stalking the streets of the Big Apple since 2010, documenting its denizens and posting brief snippets of their life stories to various social platforms. The project has generated two books, garnered more than 16 million Facebook likes, and received praise from major figures in the public sphere.
But a firestorm of criticism erupted when Stanton posted a picture of two track-suited teens with the caption, “We've been together for ten months now so we're trying to keep the passion alive.”
"We've been together for ten months now so we're trying to keep the passion alive."
Posted by Humans of New York on Tuesday, January 19, 2016
Most commenters focused on what we would have: Ten months is nothing you little zygotes, come back when you’ve done ten years hard labor in the salt mines that we labor in day after day to appease our alien overlords.
“you're in trouble if after 10 months you're already trying to keep the passion alive…” one commenter said.
“You mean "we've been alive for 10 months"?” another agreed.
But Stanton was having none of it. He rarely weighs in in the comments section, preferring to let his work do the talking, but he decided he needed to step in for what's right.
“Not sure why the comment section is trying to force an adult perspective of relationships on two high schoolers. Let them be sixteen. Ten months is 8 percent of their lives,” he wrote. His comment has garnered a nice 69,000 likes.
“You know when Brandon has to say something, it's gotten ridiculous,” the top comment on his comment agrees.
And we agree. How many songs and movies have focused on young love? Romeo and Juliet is about 14-year-olds (gross)! Since Stanton weighed in, the commentariat have turned positive, proving that it is possible to be nice online. Now, if you'll excuse us, we have to together our statement outfits and prepare to lie outrageously when a guy approaches us with a camera.