Family of man, 2013 edition

January 28, 2013 6:31 PM

Some portraits of random people:
Son playing catch with his dad.
Ballet dancers from Rwanda.
Dangerous kiss in a photo booth, 1953.
Bangladesh women riding between train cars.
Biking to sell at the market, Mali. Riding on his dad’s bike.
Kids: Two Cambodian Girls at Angkor Wat. Afghan refugee girls. South African orphans washing hands. Japanese boy playing baseball. Garbage scavangers in Mali. Loves Blues. The Bicycle Man (Cykelmannen), Gävle, Sweden, 1956. Homeless in Delhi.
Botswana tour guide plays with a scorpion.
Balinese artisan proud of his woodwork.
I was called a "foreign bitch" today by a homeless man. Here's my family as refugees before coming to the US.
Kvitrafn from the band Jotunspur stands on a street in Bergen, Norway wearing 'corpse paint' style make-up.

2011 tsunami survivor.
A Syrian rebel soldier running for cover.
Acrobatic monk.
Old people: Romanian couple in their backyard. In Havana. From Nepal: Woman growing pot to feed her goats. A Holy Man. 'My 84 year old grandfather'.
Secret Service Agent Robert Wanko in front of the Washington Hilton during the Reagan assassination attempt, 1981.
A West Bank Palestinian man argues with an Israeli soldier.
World War II veteran Konstantin Pronin, 86, waits for his comrades at Gorky park during Victory Day in Moscow, Russia, on Monday, May 9, 2011.
Twins.
A homesteader, his wife and their child, in their hand built dugout home. Pie Town, NM, 1940
Here is the 1955 poster of the original Family of Man.
(More here)

posted by growabrain (9 comments total)

That picture of the 2011 tsunami survivor has stuck somewhere deep within since I first saw it. It's the first thing I think of when I remember the tsunami. It inspired me to write a short story about a girl whose picture becomes the face of a national tragedy, and doesn't find out about it until after clean-up has begun and their internet access is restored.
posted by skycrashesdown at 6:39 PM on January 28, 2013 [2 favorites]

A fascinating sampling of the incredible variety of people and cultures on this planet, and it's called "Human Porn." Bravo, internet.
posted by Huck500 at 6:43 PM on January 28, 2013 [1 favorite]

The *Porn thing is a reddit thing; the idea is "porn for people who like _____" and there are a bunch of them. One of the reddits I follow is r/SpacePorn which is lots of glorious pictures of nebulae and stars and so forth. I'm assuming 'human porn' is one of the later ones to come into existence and that the title is at least a little tongue in cheek.
posted by capricorn at 6:47 PM on January 28, 2013

The *Porn thing is a reddit thing;

Do you really think that?
posted by pompomtom at 6:49 PM on January 28, 2013

Man, that HumanPorn subreddit is pretty cool but talk about the most unfortunate name ever. I get the idea, but, uh, great way to turn a super interesting concept into something I really don't want other people seeing me browse?
posted by threeants at 6:52 PM on January 28, 2013

pompomtom: In that, do I really think there is a group of subreddits called "the SFW porn network" and r/HumanPorn is one of them, and the context in which that group of subreddits exists is why it is called HumanPorn? Yes.

I'm not trying to suggest that Reddit invented the term 'food porn' or anything like that.
posted by capricorn at 6:52 PM on January 28, 2013

(Really neat post, btw.)
posted by threeants at 6:53 PM on January 28, 2013

I was called a "foreign bitch" today by a homeless man.

Well...that's a perfect ministorm of suckitude. This post is a nice response.
posted by yoink at 6:56 PM on January 28, 2013

Also, I feel like the "porn" thing casts an objectifying slant on what could be an affirming exercise. Not just in its association with actual sex porn but with food porn et al too. I mean, I hope there's a difference between the way we "consume" a picture of an oozy grilled cheese and a picture of someone from another culture doing something interesting.
posted by threeants at 6:59 PM on January 28, 2013