Are scrolling through your Instagram feeds and then you see a post from upworthy and you know it's going to be good, it's going to be positive, it's going to be uplifting. Well, Now, Upworthy has a new book coming out, and I'm pleased to have two of the people behind Upworthy and the new book. We've got Gabriel Raylik and Luci Hanell on the show today, And first of all, welcome, And second of all, how lucky are you that you get to make your living sharing fun and happy, uplifting
stories with people. That's awesome.
Yeah, it's a pretty good gig. No complaints on our part.
So thanks for having us.
Well, you guys are now branching out into the printed word, And tell me a little bit about the book and what you guys, how you chose the stories that are going in the book.
Yeah, you know, this book came about you know, we, Lucy and I built a really large following on Instagram at upworthy. There's about five million folks who follow us now and which is amazing. And one thing that we started seeing happening on that channel was when we would share a post, you know about you know, an act
of kindness, or decency that was going on. Other people would be inspired to start sharing their own stories, and we thought that was really neat, and Lucy and I would kind of like screencap these comments and stories that people were sharing, text them to each other and be like, oh, did you read this? This is great? And it was
like the best part of our job. So we decided, you know what, let's see how many of these stories that we can get and get to know our audience and the people who follow up were they well, And so we started asking questions like, who's the kindest stranger that you've ever met, who's a teacher that you'll never forget, What's a small thing someone did for you that had
an outsized impact on your life. And we would just get thousands and thousands and thousands of responses and we read through them all or we decided that they deserved kind of, you know, to be preserved forever because they made us feel so good to read them, and we thought a book would be the best way to kind of pay homage to the gravitas and power that these
stories hold. So, you know, we reached out and we interviewed hundreds of people in our audience and worked with them hand in hand and with writers to turn them into the stories that are featured in this book. And that is what makes up good people, stories from the best of humanity. And you know, we're really proud of it. It's a good feeling read we Liza, What are you some of your favorite stories that you remember that are in the book that you were especially touched by.
Yeah, you know, there's so many, and I genuinely mean that every single story in this book is wonderful in its own way. I really enjoyed the ones that are about a small thing, a seemingly innocuous thing that actually had a huge impact on someone. There's a story that comes to mind called good hair Day, which is about a woman who had gone through radiation treatment for cancer her hair and it had just started to grow back
and looked like this, like pixie cut. She was rocking, and she felt very self conscious, and she was out and about with her family and this group of girls looked at her and said, cute haircut, something super simple. But they had no idea that that actually meant a
great deal to this woman. She had been debating whether or not she was going to wear a wig to her son's wedding, and because of that moment, she was able to say, you know what, I'm not going with the wig, and she sent us a photo of her looking radiant and gorgeous at this wedding, rocking her short haircut. And it just goes to show you have no idea what people are going through, and a tiny, small thing can actually have a huge impact on someone.
What about you, Gabriel, Is there anything that stands out? Oh, you're muted, You're you're muted.
I'm sorry about that. Yeah, nothing stands out, just total silence. No, I mean, look, they all work together. Every story builds on the last to kind of create a wonderful you know, breadth and depth of the human experience that speaks to just what it means to be alive. And I really that's the power behind it. And so many stick out
to me. There's you know, one about a guy who takes a different route and when a stranger suggests it to him in a diner in Texas and he's returning back from being on leave in the military and he's going through a hard time and this simple act of driving down a different road, you know, leads him to have a completely different outlook on his life and leads to a well of support and good memories that he
really needed at that time and in difficult times. I would follow in the future, And so I find myself thinking about that one a lot. It's actually called a curly Fries and it closes out the book. It's one of my favorites.
How many stories are in the book overall.
From one hundred and one wow, short stories plus comments, you know, taken directly from the comment section and sort of interest first throughout.
Oh, that's very cool. So this is the kind of book that you can pick up, you can put down. You don't have to read it in order. You could just kind of go through at your pace, or if you're having a rotten day, you could pick it up, open it up and get something out of that. I love what you guys do. I so appreciate what you guys do, because, like I said, the Internet is a cesspool, right, and part of it is self inflicted.
Right.
I'm on X you know, I'm on Instagram. Instagram is actually the best of all of them to me. But seeing what you're doing and reminding people that even when we're reading all of these terrible things that politicians are doing. Seeing these small acts of kindness and the impact that they can have can really change your perspective and remind you that no matter how bad the big bad is, the small things and the people in this country are really the best of everything. And that's what I'm kind
of taking away from it. I put a link on the blog so people could buy the book. I feel like this, if you're the to buy a book for Christmas. I do buy books for Christmas. I was telling them that I sent out Larry Read's book on Character often, but now I'm going to have to add the Upworthy book because you never know who's going to need a great little story that day. I do have to ask you this, out of thousands of people, how did you what was it about these stories that made you say
that needs to go on the book? When you're talking to thousands of stories that you were sifting.
Through, you know, the truth is there's probably enough material in people that we talked to to fill a dozen books, and so it was hard to decide, Okay, like these
are the ones that make it. But the common thread I think with and this is true with any good stories, it's stuff that we wanted to hear more about when we first had someone reach out with like, hey, this is something that I want to talk about, and that we wanted to share it with other people and thought that folks could benefit from it either because it's a life lesson or because it's a reminder of you know, profound goodness or a simple thing. But that's what ties
it together. It's all stuff that deserves to be heard and can be uplifting, you know, upworthy. It's where the name comes from.
The book is called Upworthy, and I put a link on the blog today so you can just zip right over and buy it for all your friends. Gabriel Rayleik and Lucia Nell, thank you so much for making time for us today.
Thank you so much, Mandy all.
Right, thanks guys. Yeah, if you're looking for the perfect gift for this hour puss in your life, this might be it.