\u201cWhat\u2019s the craziest thing you ever did for love?\u201d<\/p>\n
This is Jahad Chris Carter\u2019s favorite question to ask strangers he meets, usually in Washington Square Park in Manhattan, or as he likes to call it, his office. As the creator and host of \u201cHopeless Romantic Society,\u201d a man-on-the-street-style series on social media and YouTube, he\u2019s on a quest to reveal people\u2019s personal dating tales, no matter how chaotic, and he actually gets them to spill.<\/p>\n
One woman confessed to slashing tires and taking bank information. One man said that he was almost charged with home invasion. Another woman admitted to paying to save a man\u2019s mother\u2019s home from foreclosure. And one person said that his ex ran him over with a car and that he continued to talk to him afterward.<\/p>\n
Mr. Carter, 25, who goes by J.C., said that he doesn\u2019t come at the interviews with the sole aim of going viral. \u201cI\u2019m approaching it in a way where I genuinely care, and I think people can sense that,\u201d he said.<\/p>\n
\u201cI\u2019m a total stranger, so I\u2019m not going to judge them,\u201d he added.<\/p>\n
The internet has never been more saturated with videos of people brandishing microphones and cameras in strangers\u2019 faces, recording guerrilla interviews on the street. In cities across the world, creators are asking to tour strangers\u2019 apartments, see their bank accounts, or reveal information about their dating lives and relationship issues.<\/p>\n
On Instagram and TikTok, Mr. Carter\u2019s video interviews are reduced down to the seconds of the most shocking and personal anecdotes. But on YouTube, his gleeful style of production is unleashed, with some videos stretching to 20 minutes and showcasing a variety of conversations. His editing relies on quick pacing and jump cuts to meme and GIF reactions, with his subjects revealing an even more wild thing about their dating history as the video progresses. All together, he\u2019s amassed over a million followers and subscribers across the three platforms.<\/p>\n
\u201cIt\u2019s gotten to the point where I\u2019ll stand somewhere with a tripod and people will start recognizing me, and then a line will start forming,\u201d Mr. Carter said.<\/p>\n
Mr. Carter moved to Brooklyn from North Carolina in 2021, a year after graduating from East Carolina University, where he studied political science and communications. After scratching plans to go to law school, he began working at a public-relations company in the financial district.<\/p>\n
In his downtime, he was going on dates every weekend that first summer and fall in the city, he said, but wasn\u2019t making real connections. He said it was his experience dating after graduation that sparked his interest in other people\u2019s love lives.<\/p>\n
\u201cI was coming from a really, really lonely place,\u201d Mr. Carter, who lives in Bushwick, recalled. A run of rotten dates left him asking whether he should \u201cstop dating terrible men\u201d and instead \u201cstart talking about this issue in general.\u201d<\/p>\n
As for his own views on love and relationships, Mr. Carter, who is gay, said that the show had made him more open, but that he was still a work in progress as he gets over some of his own hangups.<\/p>\n
\u201cI hold back in a way where it\u2019s like I\u2019m not bringing my full self everywhere, especially with people I\u2019m dating,\u201d he said. \u201cI\u2019m very curated and I\u2019m trying to break that down, but it\u2019s really, really hard.\u201d<\/p>\n
When he started filming \u201cHopeless Romantic Society,\u201d in February 2022, he thought of the series as a way to meet others with dating woes, while also highlighting queer people and people of color.<\/p>\n
\u201cI wasn\u2019t really super open,\u201d Mr. Carter said of his days before the series, when he was still getting used to being a queer person and dating publicly. \u201cSo it\u2019s kind of new.\u201d<\/p>\n
His first interview was with a man in his 50s or 60s who shared that he was previously married but that his wife left him 10 years earlier because he had \u201ca little side piece.\u201d The man said he was still holding on to that grief.<\/p>\n
\u201cI was just kind of surprised,\u201d he said. \u201cLike, he actually told me all that.\u201d<\/p>\n
When he hits the streets, Mr. Carter often wears a fitted crop top or tank top, colorful bomber jackets, jeans, and a variety of wigs and hats. Sometimes the roles switch in his interactions, and his subjects interview him. Last fall, a clip took off on social media in which he revealed to the actor Kalen Allen that he was \u201clollygagging\u201d and \u201ckissing girls\u201d during Pride Month, which resulted in him catching strep and Covid. Mr. Carter said now people approached him all the time shouting \u201clollygagging\u201d at him.<\/p>\n
\u201cWhen I posted that video it really felt like, Oh, wow, like you can be queer, you can be yourself and people really want to know about it,\u201d he said.<\/p>\n
A few months ago, Mr. Carter was able to quit his day job to produce the series full time, supported by brand partnerships. He has also taken his one-man production on the road, conducting interviews in Los Angeles, Atlanta and Washington.<\/p>\n
Still, when it comes to his work, he doesn\u2019t like to be too far away from his office: The hopeless romantics in Washington Square Park are always down to talk.<\/p>\n