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New York police officer Larry
DePrimo gives a homeless man a pair of boots and socks in Times Square.
Photograph: Jennifer Foster/Reuters
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It was a fairytale of New York; an image of warmth and
compassion on the mean streets that captured American hearts and looked
set to make the New York police department's Christmas. After a tourist
reportedly snapped this picture of police officer Lawrence DePrimo
presenting a shoeless man at Times Square with a brand new pair of
expensive boots, the photograph went viral and got more than 1.6m views.
DePrimo was feted on television shows for his humane gesture: after
speaking to the barefooted homeless man he had simply gone into a shoe
shop, bought the boots and helped the poor guy put them on.
That was last Tuesday. As the story captured imaginations at the start of the Christmas season, however, reporters were looking for the recipient of the footwear. The New York Times found him wandering the upper west side – still barefooted. His new boots were nowhere to be seen. The homeless man's name is Jeffrey Hillman, he is a military veteran who worked in kitchens before living on the streets, and he told the Times he has hidden the boots because they are so expensive. He's scared someone might kill him for them. Plus, he wants a "piece of the pie" from the dissemination of his image online.
It is an object lesson in the complexity an apparently simple image can conceal. The viral success of this picture came of its stark and moving clarity – here is a random act of kindness caught on camera, that for once makes the police look good, and the city look tender. But did Hillman even want the boots? And what does the picture really show? Like any image of charity it glorifies the giver, and defines the recipient as a passive, helpless victim. It makes poverty look simple and kindness seem a substitute for larger social change. Worst of all, the instant online fame of the image has inspired a backlash that gets nastier by the day.
From being an anonymous drifter on the streets of New York, Hillman suddenly finds himself a celebrity, and the target of increasingly aggressive scrutiny. Now the New York Daily News claims he "isn't actually homeless", citing city officials who say he has an apartment in the Bronx paid for by social security and veterans' benefits. According to this report he walks the streets shoeless out of choice even though he has got a place to live.
So here is the mean-minded Scrooge version of the tale: no more an object of pity, Hillman is described in this report as a troubled individual making perverse choices despite attempts to help him. "Outreach teams from the department of homeless services continue to work with him, but he has a history of turning down services," it quotes a city spokeswoman as saying.
Let's pause to absorb the absurdity of this. A picture that started as a seasonal heartwarmer has now become a reason not to feel sorry for the homeless as Hillman is painted as a wilful eccentric.
This photograph has done something terrible and cruel to Jeffrey Hillman. He has been held up to totally unhelpful, mean-minded scrutiny. What an unhelpful, unenlightening picture this turned out to be. Obviously, some may suspect a more calculating aspect to the whole affair – did the picture really just happen to emerge with its flattering light on the New York police department? But that aside, assuming it really is a chance record of a moment of sudden kindness, its viral career demonstrates the fragility of truth and the stupidity of crowds.
Everyone likes this picture, it goes round the world in seconds, it becomes a cosy heartwarming cult for a day. Then the questions start and the warm glow hardens into a remorseless searchlight on an individual who clearly does not need this massive public attention. Hillman is right to wonder what he is getting from all this, as some other viral image displaces a moment too complex, after all, for the illusory warmth of a picture one shares while sipping an eggnog latte in a warm coffee shop.
That was last Tuesday. As the story captured imaginations at the start of the Christmas season, however, reporters were looking for the recipient of the footwear. The New York Times found him wandering the upper west side – still barefooted. His new boots were nowhere to be seen. The homeless man's name is Jeffrey Hillman, he is a military veteran who worked in kitchens before living on the streets, and he told the Times he has hidden the boots because they are so expensive. He's scared someone might kill him for them. Plus, he wants a "piece of the pie" from the dissemination of his image online.
It is an object lesson in the complexity an apparently simple image can conceal. The viral success of this picture came of its stark and moving clarity – here is a random act of kindness caught on camera, that for once makes the police look good, and the city look tender. But did Hillman even want the boots? And what does the picture really show? Like any image of charity it glorifies the giver, and defines the recipient as a passive, helpless victim. It makes poverty look simple and kindness seem a substitute for larger social change. Worst of all, the instant online fame of the image has inspired a backlash that gets nastier by the day.
From being an anonymous drifter on the streets of New York, Hillman suddenly finds himself a celebrity, and the target of increasingly aggressive scrutiny. Now the New York Daily News claims he "isn't actually homeless", citing city officials who say he has an apartment in the Bronx paid for by social security and veterans' benefits. According to this report he walks the streets shoeless out of choice even though he has got a place to live.
So here is the mean-minded Scrooge version of the tale: no more an object of pity, Hillman is described in this report as a troubled individual making perverse choices despite attempts to help him. "Outreach teams from the department of homeless services continue to work with him, but he has a history of turning down services," it quotes a city spokeswoman as saying.
Let's pause to absorb the absurdity of this. A picture that started as a seasonal heartwarmer has now become a reason not to feel sorry for the homeless as Hillman is painted as a wilful eccentric.
This photograph has done something terrible and cruel to Jeffrey Hillman. He has been held up to totally unhelpful, mean-minded scrutiny. What an unhelpful, unenlightening picture this turned out to be. Obviously, some may suspect a more calculating aspect to the whole affair – did the picture really just happen to emerge with its flattering light on the New York police department? But that aside, assuming it really is a chance record of a moment of sudden kindness, its viral career demonstrates the fragility of truth and the stupidity of crowds.
Everyone likes this picture, it goes round the world in seconds, it becomes a cosy heartwarming cult for a day. Then the questions start and the warm glow hardens into a remorseless searchlight on an individual who clearly does not need this massive public attention. Hillman is right to wonder what he is getting from all this, as some other viral image displaces a moment too complex, after all, for the illusory warmth of a picture one shares while sipping an eggnog latte in a warm coffee shop.