The Humans of Oxford Facebook page, launched in March, has seen great success in the first four weeks of term.
The ‘Humans of’ movement was inspired by the now iconic Humans of New York blog, started by Brandon Stanton.
The original page now has over five million followers on Facebook. Stanton published the Humans of New York Book in October 2013.
It has since been emulated across the globe with popular examples including Humans of India, Humans of Paris, and Humans of Sofia.
Humans of Oxford is run by Ed Klinger, Reeva Misra, Connie Bloomfield, Charlie Goodman and Nathalie Wright, all third year students at Wadham College.
They started posting photographs on 3 March, but have since received over 2,700 likes in the past three weeks.
“When we started it, I don’t think we really thought about how popular it would be,” they said.
“Of course, the “brand” names of ‘Oxford’ and the ‘Humans of…’ set-up is enough to get lots of people interested.
“However, we want to hold their attention and present our page viewers with a different perspective of the city each day,” they added.
The group claims the premise of the ‘Humans of’ movement is very simple, and described it as: “One city, one photo, one person and a short quotation from the subject. Sometimes funny, sometimes poignant, sometimes banal.”
“It is an antidote to the faceless crowds of modern urban life. I guess we wanted to go out and meet people ourselves and also create a sense of community online,” they explained.
“The best thing about the project is having an excuse to go up and talk to someone – anyone – you see on the street and have a chat.
“It’s amazing how many conversational doors a smile and a camera can open.”
The Humans of Oxford page can be found here: https://www.facebook.com/humansofox
