A few months ago, the story telling platform Humans of Bombay (HoB) was caught up in a controversy after it filed a case against People of India for alleged plagiarism. The controversy garnered even more attention when Brandon Stanton, founder of Humans of New York came out and accused HoB of copying the former’s format of storytelling. Stanton even pointed towards HoB’s commercialization of art, something which HoNY has refrained from doing.
Since then the internet has debated over cultural appropriation, over commercialization of art, and how affects the creator economy.
In a conversation with Storyboard18, Karishma Mehta, founder and chief executive officer at Humans of Bombay touches upon the plagiarism controversy, cyber trolling, HoB’s impactful stories and milestones and the way ahead.
Edited excerpts
The controversy around Humans of Bombay gave a push to the debate on cultural appropriation and over commercialization of art. What are your thoughts on it?
The first thing that needs to be discussed about the verdict was that it was misunderstood. Motivation vs inspiration what this is about. Imitation is flattering. We have been inspired by Humans of New York and we have maintained that for over a decade that the content creation industry is finally becoming more organised and structured.
We think that directly lifting content of the creative expression of someone whether it’s in the form of expression or actual photos, videos and written text; it defeats the purpose of creating content. What we were trying to do was to set a precedent for the creator economy in general. It has been unstructured and had these layers of nuances. A case like this had never been heard before. We thought it would set a precedence to protect direct lifting of content and imitation of creative expression.
An old video of you emerged where you said that the idea for Humans of Bombay came out of the blue, and Brandon Stanton of Humans of New York also came on social media and talked about appropriation. What do you have to say to that?
It is so easy to pick up one clip that I was about 22, I am far old today; what I did learn at that point, a Humans of Bombay came to me out of the blue, I didn’t mean I came up with the idea. It wasn’t expressed well; be it naivety or the fact that I wasn’t in the public domain as much. Obviously things have changed now.
About four-five years ago, I posted a photo with the founder of Humans of New York. I caught up for breakfast with Brandon, and I told him that I was so grateful to start the platform and that we were able to carry the conversation forward in India in a place like Bombay.
In hundreds of interviews he has been credited; the fact that it became a heated topic and I would never discredit someone, that’s something I am very sure about. Given that there is more than enough, this clip going viral didn’t make much of a deep impact; we have always credited him and we continue to credit him.
How did the controversy impact HOB and the creator economy? Has it affected brand partnerships?
Most partners understood; I still remember the day it erupted, a very important partner of ours sent me a message saying that we are with you. That’s testimony to the fact that we have never hidden it.
In terms of impact, we put a pause on posting branded content during that period because we didn’t want our partners to be affected negatively by the backlash. In terms of understanding, we were lucky to have that support.
The internet is an open forum which both judges and praises. How did you deal with the criticism online? What were your takeaways from the controversy?
I don’t want to play damsel-in-distress. I don’t want to play the sympathy card at all. While it did affect me on many layers, the thing that did protect my mental health was that I was actually not consuming. I was very strictly told that “You do not need to read and if it is something very important it will come to you through different facets.” It blew way out of proportion.
This hate translated on to my team and my family. Most importantly, there are 25-26 year old girls who have received threats of various capacities and we had to get an in-house counsellor because their mental health took a hit.
While I have been in the public domain, for close to a decade, these girls haven’t been. So, I found that part to be the most upsetting part. A by-product of my profession translated into the important people in my life.
If you have a certain perception about my company, I can take it. But,a lot of the comments were very personal and that can maybe be a lesson for us all that when you see public figures, you know them from the outside. You know certain things about them based on the perception created about their work or what you read someone e;se’s opinion.
At the end of it, it is someone who you may not know. That person has family, friends and a team. The personal comments do hit far more harder than criticism than someone’s profession. If that line could be drawn, the world would be a far better place.
Take us through your business model? What kind of brands does HoB generally work with?
Outside of creating content for brands on our platform, we also create content for brands that they can use on their platform. It’s called white-label content. We have a YouTube podcast, we run two shows.
We usually pick brands where there are purpose driven campaigns. We did a campaign with Stayfree where we spoke about menstruation and there was this one particular reel which did exceptionally well which spoke about how a teenage brother would be extra sensitive and get chocolates for his sister during that itme.
That’s a very important narrative out there, to have that sensitivity, to have that emotional intelligence about and the content was flooded with comments like I am showing my son the video. Whether it is a brand campaign, or whether it is an organic Humans of Bombay story, we stand for having dialogue that can shift the perspective on certain topics.
What is that one story that touched you the most emotionally?
When you become an intimate part of a person’s life, whether it is the business of it or the seemingly small aspects, you get impacted. There was a little boy who had to drop out of 9th or 10th standard during Covid because his mother lost her job. So, he started selling tea to make up for that and arrange his school fees.
We did a vocal campaign for him and a lot of people asked for his number so that they could support him in any capacity. During the course of the story, he mentioned that he wants to become a pilot and of course that’s a very expensive ordeal.
SpiceJet reached out to us and said that they wanted to surprise this kid. They took him on a flight, he was shown the entire process, once he was taken to Delhi the management team at SpiceJet offered him free flight school training once he graduated. He went from having to face a difficult ordeal to knowing that his flight school is sorted out. He is back in school now, so we hope to see that dream coming true very shortly.
What are some of the key milestones that HoB has achieved?
We run two shows – How The Hell Did I Do It on YouTube and the Humans of Bombay show also on YouTube. Both are different kind of shows and both are receiving so much appreciation and I am so grateful for the community to stand by us and support us whether it is on Instagram or YouTube.
The Bombay Storytelling show has been pushed forward; it has given us the time to create smaller events culminating into the Bombay storytelling show next year.
Outside of that, milestones we have achieved are working with certain impact stories. We have been able to push the narrative when it’s come to certain key topics like the narrative of sex workers. We have told a couple of stories – one was about a story about a sex worker who escaped the ideal and is able to help other sex workers.
We are looking forward to raising funds so that we can go that one step further than just storytelling to actually create that impact.
What’s next for HoB? How are you aiming to grow and expand?
It is going to be 10 years for the Humans of Bombay in 2024. We are looking forward to becoming a 360 degree media house. That includes going back to the root of community; we want to move from digital to having those intimate events where we can actually speak and talk to one another and drive that sense of community and humanity which is what we stand for. That begins in January 2024 for us.
Outside of that, we have the Bombay Storytelling festival which will be a large festival in October 2024. It’s going to be a blend of music, art and culture. It’s going to celebrate not only popular faces but also people from our community who are able to have similar narratives but they have not necessarily gotten the platform. We are also hoping to convert a lot of our stories which deserve to be told converted into short films from 30 seconds reels.