\nHoran, a freelance videographer, started the account about seven months ago. He had attracted just over 1,000 followers before he started using the phone on July 9 in LOVE Park. Now, the account has over 69,000 followers and 12 million views.\n<\/p>\n
\n“It’s a social experiment to get people to talk to each other,” Horan said Thursday.\n<\/p>\n
\nHe had been going to\u00a0events, college campuses and parks and trying different ways to encourage public discourse \u2014 putting up tables where passersby could talk one-on-one or letting them note their thoughts on whiteboards.<\/p>\n
\n“But people weren’t really hearing each other,” Horan said. “They were still doing the same thing that we always do where we shout and hope somebody hears you.”\n<\/p>\n
![\"Love](\"https:\/\/media.phillyvoice.com\/media\/images\/071626LoveParkPhone2.width-704.jpg\")
Courtenay Harris Bond\/Philly Voice<\/p>\n
Dan Horan set up an analog phone in LOVE Park to get people to share their thoughts.<\/p>\n
\nThen a police car accidentally ran over Horan’s whiteboard at a Fourth of July event. When he went to pick up a new one that someone had advertised on Facebook, it ended up being another videographer who was closing his business after 30 years.\n<\/p>\n
\n“The tech to make this all happen was in a box covered in dust,” Horan said about the phone, the cords and the equipment he uses. “The technology stopped being made 20 years ago.”\n<\/p>\n
\nIt was serendipity, Horan said.\n<\/p>\n
\n“I had been scratching my head about how to get people to interact with a microphone on camera in public, and I saw the phone, and I was like, ‘Wow! That’s it! That’s the answer! Everybody picks up the phone.”\n<\/p>\n
\nBut he does have to explain to some young people how to work it, Horan said. “They pick it up, and they don’t know what to do.”\n<\/p>\n
![\"Love](\"https:\/\/media.phillyvoice.com\/media\/images\/071626LoveParkPhone3.width-704.jpg\")
Courtenay Harris Bond\/Philly Voice<\/p>\n
The sign encourages people to ‘ Just pick up the phone and talk!’<\/p>\n
An “old-tech modulating system gives power to the phone just like you would have in your house,” Horan said. “I grab audio through a different piece of technology and then put that into the camera.”\n<\/p>\n
\nHoran, who lives in Northeast Philly, has ferried\u00a0his phone to the Frankford and Olney neighborhoods. But he is getting hundreds of requests from people in other parts of the city and surrounding regions \u2013 and from around the country \u2013 to bring his phone to them.\u00a0<\/p>\n
On Friday, he is taking his setup to New York.<\/p>\n
\nKnowing that their voices are going to be heard by so many other people on Instagram is part of the appeal, Horan said.<\/p>\n
Also, people have been pouring out love and support for each other in the comments. They\u00a0are responding to “being understood and seeing that other people feel the same thing,” he said.<\/p>\n
\nOn Thursday, Alexavier Gonzalez, 18, was a repeat caller.\n<\/p>\n
\n“I really expressed how happy I am now that I’m looking at housing,” Gonzalez said. “I’ve been experiencing homelessness for a couple of years, so it’s a big step in life.”\n<\/p>\n
\nGonzalez, who has been staying in different shelters, also said that he thanked his mom.\n<\/p>\n
During a call earlier in the week, a woman said, “What’s on my mind is how amazing my husband has been taking care of me when I’ve been sick, even after surgery.”<\/p>\n
\nAnother caller said she was grateful that the World Cup had brought people together.<\/p>\n
\n“If anything comes out of this,” Horan said, “I just want people to be able to be friendly with each other and to walk out of the house and say, ‘I love you,’ and not look crazy.”\n<\/p>\n