Humans of Rice shows student life in pictures

By Natalie Koonce     9/11/13 7:00pm

A new Facebook page called Humans of Rice University went live this week, joining the ranks of other Rice student pages such as Rice Missed Encounters and Rice Confessions.

The page, inspired by Brandon Stanton's often-emulated Humans of New York blog, has gained hundreds of "likes" in the past few days since its administrators shared their project publicly.

The five photographers asked to remain anonymous and agreed to be referred to by only their first initials.

---

---

J., a sophomore, said he believes withholding the photographers' identities will help respect their privacy while also increasing curiosity about the project.

"I think Rice students will pay more attention if we place the focus [on] our photos rather than on those that take them," J. said.

C., also a sophomore, added that the photographers hope anonymity will help them avoid requests to be featured on the page.

"We would rather approach subjects and have our identities be a surprise than have people ask us to put them on the page," C. said. "That would defeat the purpose."

C. said the team's goal is to give students a chance to share their personalities and opinions with the Rice community.

"There are a lot of very intriguing people on campus who don't have an outlet to express their ideas," C. said. "We want to tap into that unseen part of Rice."

C. said he started the project and enlisted the other four photographers. He said he got the idea after talking to a friend who had started a Humans of Northwestern Facebook page.

"I know there are a lot of adaptations to the original Humans of New York, but I thought it would work here, so I contacted other photographers I thought would be interested," C. said.

According to J., although the team plans to eventually use strangers as subjects, for now the members are choosing friends, as was the case with the first picture posted on the page.

The subject, Brown College sophomore Larisa LaMere, said her friend C. asked ahead of time whether she would be interested in modeling and addressing the Rice community.

"After he had snapped me a few times, he asked if there was anything I wanted to say to Rice, something I felt was important to me," LaMere said. "I talked about how it's easy to get overwhelmed and stressed, but I don't want my emotions to define me anymore."

LaMere said she has high hopes for the project.

"I hope that the Humans of Rice project really takes off," LaMere said. "It's an amazing opportunity to get a different perspective on Rice life."

---