Walking around campus on any given day, you see hundreds of faces – some familiar, some new. But who is the human that lies behind that face in the crowd? What stories can he or she share?

Halle Mangrum, a junior in English, and her friend, Marc Celestini, a junior in computer and electrical engineering, launched the Humans of NCSU Facebook page to answer that question. The page, is a spin-off of the famous Humans of New York photo blog, started in early September and has already acquired more than 1,000 likes.

“I think people want to be known,” Mangrum said.

The Humans of New York started in the summer of 2010 by Brandon Stanton. The project initially consisted of thousands of photographs of average New Yorkers, but later began to feature short stories and quotes. With more than 9 million followers, the page has spawned several spin-off blogs around the world, from Humans of Switzerland to Humans of San Diego.

Some of those inspired include blogs devoted to Westeros, a fictional setting in George R.R. Martin’s A Song of Ice and Fire series, and Springfield, home of The Simpsons.

“We are looking to do something similar to the Humans of New York page, a way to offer more insight into average, run-of-the-mill people who don’t get their stories heard,” Celestini said. “Students can look at the page and see people that they might just pass by on the street.”

Creating an entry proves straightforward: find an approachable subject on campus, who, according to Celestini, “puts off good vibes,” interview the subject while taking candid photographs and post an entry to the page, consisting of a photo taken and a quote from the interview.

“You generally have an idea [of a quote] after talking to them,” Celestini said. “Usually it takes about half an hour to an hour to put it all together and upload to the page.”

They use a voice recorder to capture the feel of the interview and the subject because it preserves more of the voice, according to Mangrum.

“There is a moment during an interview that we both realize that we have something; that we have the entry,” Celestini said.

The two work as a team, giving each other advice and sticking to what Celestini calls a “succinct view” of the direction of the page.

“We have this almost secret language where we look at each other and know,” Mangrum said.

The idea to start the page came to Celestini and Mangrum during the summer.

“We were looking for a project to work on,” Mangrum said. “Anything to make NCSU smaller and feel more like a community seemed like a good place to start.”

Mangrum and Celestini keep the questions they ask simple, but in a way that touches on greater topics and ideas someone off of the street wouldn’t typically walk up and ask.  Questions about how people tick, according to Mangum. Neither Mangrum nor Celestini, though, said they would consider themselves courageous.

“It’s kind of a like going up to someone and telling them a cheesy pick-up line,” Celestini said. “It took convincing ourselves to just go out and do it.”

Mangrum and Celestini said that the page does present a few challenges.

They approach about twice as many people as they actually interview, according to Celestini. Some people are just busy, and some just don’t want to be interviewed.

Other challenges deal with what to include in an entry. It can be difficult to find a photo and the right quote from a 15-minute interview to sum up a person, according to Celestini.

“You are looking to have a vibe but also something that is relatable,” Celestini said.

Another challenge stems from the fear of rejection. The concern lies with when you first put up a picture and quote that it is well-received. Another is when a person or story doesn’t receive as much acknowledgement as others, according to Mangrum.

“You do the interviews and you start to care about certain people and their stories, and then you see that those entries aren’t as liked [on Facebook] as others,” Mangrum said.

Celestini said, for him, the likes on Facebook don’t matter very much, but he does use it as a metric.

Challenges aside, they do not take away from the experience of running the Humans of NCSU page. Mangrum said she enjoys the experience because she gets to hang out with her friend and has an excuse to meet new people.

“Most people won’t go up to someone and talk to them and ask someone about themselves,” Mangrum said.

The reward comes from seeing their work appreciated, Celestini said. It’s about the people and their stories, but it’s also the photography and quotes extracted that make it art.

“People will look at the page and tag each other and are proud of how they are portrayed,” Celestini said.

Celestini and Mangrum said they look forward to interviewing more people and expanding the community. Ideally as the page grows, more people will begin to comment and start conversations with another, creating a “dynamic and multi-dimensional feel,” Mangrum said.

“The people you interview think about big things and express an interest in sharing,” Mangrum said. “We had one person talk about death. It is nice to know that you aren’t alone in thinking about these things or in feeling a little insecure or freaking out or whatever.”

So as you walk around campus in the middle of a typical week, passing faces in a crowd, the strangers that you encounter may not be as strange or as different as you would expect. There may in fact be some quality, a human quality, which two faces and two souls share with another. And that is a special kind of community to share in.