Recently I watched a very fascinating video called “On the Road with Steve Hartman.” Steve Hartman, CBS News reporter, profiled a photographer, Richard Renaldi, who created a project called “Touching Strangers.” Basically, the Renaldi would pick and choose a group of strangers from off the streets of New York and arrange them as family, old friends, or lovers, and capture the moment with a picture. Some of the photos that came out of this project were awkward, as you’d probably expect, but in others you’d never suspect that they didn’t know each other.
I thought that this project was an interesting way to bond complete strangers. The feedback from the participants was a common, “I felt a connection and a sort of comfort.” One particular participant said, “We are probably missing so much about the people all around us,” which leads me to my next point. When I heard that quote, it made me wonder, In a school as big as ours, how many students are complete strangers? How many of my classmates will I never meet? This was an interesting thought because I tend to think of our school’s overcrowding situation as an all-around bad thing, but if you think about all those strangers as friends you haven’t met yet, it’s not a bad thing.
Social experiments can teach someone a lot. This specific one says that you have a friend in everyone. The video encourages you to feed off of its essence and attempt to bring strangers together, whether it be by quick chats or other storytelling adventures.