Rick is the creator of both 'Subway Creatures' and 'What Is New York,' both incredibly successful social media projects that have fans all over the world.
Bored Panda was interested to get Rick's take on why 'Subway Creatures' is so popular on the internet. He told us that it "appeals to so many people around the globe because of the many unique, talented, and crazy people who use the subway system on a daily basis."
Meanwhile, "New Yorkers can relate to it and everyone else can't believe what they are seeing. Just when you think you've seen it all, something new happens."
The subway system in New York City is, by and large, one of the most efficient ways to get around the city. It gets incredibly busy: in 2020, around 2 million people used the subway each day. According to the Metropolitan Transportation Authority, roughly 640 million people rode the subway that year. However, that pales in comparison to pre-Covid times.
In 2019, a whopping 5.5 million people rode the NYC subway each day. This added up to nearly 1.7 billion (yup, that’s billion, not million) rides that year alone. With such a busy system and so much movement, it makes sense that you’ll end up seeing more people acting weirdly: you’re exposed to more strangers than elsewhere.
We were curious about the advice that Rick would give tourists who are completely new to New York City and its subway.
"People can be easily intimidated by the NYC subway system but in general it isn't that hard to navigate," he told us.
"Some sage advice would be to stay away from the edge of the platforms and if you see an empty train car, just remember—there's probably a reason it's empty in NYC," Rick warned.
‘Subway Creatures’ is a massively popular online project that’s a powerhouse on Instagram, Facebook, TikTok, and Twitter. On Instagram alone, the project has a whopping 2.7 million followers.
Meanwhile, 776k people follow the Facebook page, another 1.1 million internet users follow the TikTok account, and 37.3k folks are fans of the project on Twitter.
With a presence like that, the odds are that you’ve seen something posted by ‘Subway Creatures’ on your social media feeds even without knowing it. If it’s something fun, quirky, silly, and downright weird that’s happening on the subway, someone’s bound to send the pic to the team running the project. For anyone who’s seen something totally weird on the tube, it’s relatable and funny. Meanwhile, for anyone who has never even been on the metro, it is an eye-opener.
Rick, the founder of ‘Subway Creatures,’ previously told Bored Panda all about passenger culture in New York.
"One way to spot a true New Yorker on the subway is to find the person minding their own business and not distracted by anything going on around them," he told us via email earlier.
"They [New Yorkers] don’t sit under the subway map because they know that’s inviting tourists to stand over them while they try to navigate the city. They don’t clap for the 'Showtime' performers and they know that if there’s an empty subway car, there’s a reason no one’s on it—time to move to the next!" Rick shared some of the subtle signs to tell who’s a real New Yorker and who’s just visiting.
"A lot of the same people and same etiquette apply to all forms of transportation in NYC. However, the subway is unique in that there are platforms, tunnels, and subway cars which present opportunities for many different 'activities' compared to the buses or ferry. You are much less likely to catch performers, musicians, and weird situations on a crosstown bus—but I’m not saying that doesn’t happen!" Rick told us a bit about how the subway differs from other modes of public transport in The Big Apple.
