"Most cities are nouns. New York is a verb." This quote is often attributed to John F. Kennedy, but even if he didn't say it, it still rings true today. New York is one of the world's most diverse cities, with a population of over eight million people and each one of them is a character all their own.
If you don't believe it, just check out the things Instagram page Overheard New York shares on their page. It's an ever-growing collection of conversation snippets people have overheard from actual New Yorkers. So, if you're curious, scroll down and see the wildest things people in The Big Apple talk about.
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The Overheard (OH) project shares conversations from urbanites who live in other big U.S. cities, not just New York. Although The Overheard New York page is the most popular with 1.7M fans (followed closely by Overheard LA with 1.6M), their eavesdroppers operate in five altogether. The other U.S. cities include Los Angeles, San Francisco, and Austin.
Surprisingly, the franchise also crossed the Atlantic ocean and serves some British humor on the Overheard London page. There's also the Overheard University page, where people share the convos that can only happen in college and university halls and dorms. And if that's not enough for you, you can check out their page that also documents the funniest and most absurd dating mishaps, Overheard Dating.
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But wait, are these actual conversations that people have overheard someone having in one of the cities? We know some of these conversation snippets are so ridiculous it might be hard to believe they're true. The creators of OH don't really give a straight answer, only writing, "Yes, you cynical monster" in their website FAQ section.
Interestingly, the New York account wasn't the one that started the whole franchise. In 2015, LA resident Jesse Margolis created the Overheard LA account after witnessing a ridiculous conversation at Erewhon on Beverly Boulevard. "I wasn't part of the Instagram culture, and I didn't even really know what an influencer was," Margolis told LA Times in 2018. "But I knew this was a cool thing, a reflection of me making fun of the city I love."
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In an interview for the New York Times, Jesse said that the Overheard team doesn't exactly have a vetting system. "We aren't journalists — we basically do our best. I think half of the overheard stuff is legit overheard strangers. I think a lot of it is like a group of five friends drinking and talking. And someone spontaneously says something funny and the friends send it in."
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The creator of OH Margolis doesn't really want the fame that comes along with owning such a franchise. Until today, there's not much information online about him, except that he was a casting director for documentaries and reality TV shows in LA. "I think assigning an ego and a personality to the brand just diminishes it. It's just a much bigger idea if it's not about a person."
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In a previous interview for Bored Panda, the representatives of Overheard said that their criteria about what conversations to feature mostly depends on whether it's a shared experience. It can be about "dating, finance, spirituality, food, or local knowledge," their spokesperson said.
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Interestingly, there's a website of the same name and a similar mission. Started around 2005, it's a project that even has its own Wikipedia page and other spinoffs like Overheard in the Office, Overheard at the Beach, Overheard Everywhere, and Celebrity Wit. This and similar websites use the format popularized by the website In Passing, which also documents snippets of conversations.
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But what is it about eavesdropping that we like so much? Are we just nosy and intrusive by nature? When we're children, eavesdropping is actually a crucial part of our development. One study found that our ability to listen to conversations and glean information from them improves between the ages of 3 and 5. Even if we don't tell kids to listen to others' conversations for instructions, they're able to use the information they overhear to solve problems.
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Professor of language science and author of Eavesdropping: An Intimate History John Locke says that eavesdropping is a necessary habit. Sometimes, it can act as a self-preservation method. "We live in extremely complicated social arrangements in which there are lots of people who are competing with us for the things that we want and they want. We have to be somewhat geared up to do eavesdropping."
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We're also tempted to eavesdrop because we like to know what people are really like inside. When a person thinks you can't hear them, they're not adhering to their public persona. Locke calls this "intimacy be theft" and can be justified by some as attempts to get to know people. "We love it when we get something that's truly genuinely true about others and so we still prefer taking it, or if not taking it, extracting clues on our own."
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What truth about New Yorkers did you get from this list, Pandas? Were some of them relatable, or do you think you have to be a New Yorker to truly get what these urbanites are talking about? Let us know your opinion in the comments! And if you'd like to see more overheard conversations from New York, check out our previous posts here, here, and here!
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