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Feature, Dazed MENA issue 01
A small almanac of some instagram archives
Text Sarra Alayyan
Grand narratives are, and have been for a while, out. More correctly, they’ve collapsed. For centuries, our informational world was structured by writing, fact, and some semblance of security in the form of ‘truth’. That’s not the world we inhabit now – despite it being the one many of us were primed for.
Instead, thanks to ICTs – and what author K Allado-McDowell calls ‘neural media’ – we navigate an infinity of images, content and fractal, digitally embedded lores. History, at least in its hegemonic form, has dissolved. Traditional structures of knowledge have given way to new forms of meaning-making. This shift has transformed the nature of archives, moving them outside institutional gatekeeping and into more fluid, decentralised spaces.
Today, archiving follows the whims of personal curation. Historical fragments appear on Instagram pages, not as structured records but as visual repositories. These admins are selective, but their process is far from systematic. They don’t archive in chronological order nor by geographic or cultural scope. Their approach is nonlinear—chaotic, even.
In one feed, you might see an image of a women’s police unit in Kandahar, an X-ray photo series by Helmut Newton, an 18th-century Tibetan school, an Inuit seal gut parka, Japanese mascots squeezed through tight spaces, or Ozawa Tsuyoshi’s Vegetable Weapon series from 2011. Collectively, these admins animate the forgotten minutiae of history while documenting an absurd and ungraspable present. To make sense of this quiet archival evolution, we DM’d five admins who run fringe archive pages on Instagram, opening up the conversation and taking the online off.
What is your screen time?
@arcx1000: About 3.5 hours a day. I have been slacking recently on posting, though.
@hardtokill: I spend roughly three hours a day on Instagram.
@durangoism: Anywhere from three to 10 hours depending on what my day looks like. If I discover something new that I’m completely captivated by, and I have the time, I could spend a whole day going down rabbit holes until I’ve absorbed everything I can.
Why did you chose to archive this way?
@ritualstudies: It started out as an experiment. I was going through a profound spiritual awakening at the time, and felt an overwhelming urge to map out and make sense of the truths I was experiencing internally and then share them with others. I’m a writer, but the themes and revelations in my mind felt impossible to capture with words alone. So, I began intuitively developing a posting method that allowed me to free-associate images and ideas, creating a sort of ‘telepathic’ way to capture my consciousness encounters with shadow, light, and God.
@aaarchivist: My approach to archiving is based on two key components: aesthetics and information. I believe both are essential because my account @aaarchivist is centred around visual arts and archiving—not just one or the other. This balance is what sets my account apart from others, as many tend to focus solely on either informational content or aesthetics. Some even shift towards more general news, like announcing award winners or celebrity birthdays, which is something I intentionally avoid. I structure my posts this way to create a unique identity—one that remains dedicated to archival work while maintaining a creative and visually engaging perspective. My goal is to present information in a way that is both educational and visually compelling, ensuring that every post aligns with the essence of both archiving and visual art.
@hardtokill: I started my account in 2019, when there were only a few archive accounts. In many ways, these original archive accounts shaped my perspective, introducing me to iconic movies, artists and cultural moments. This was great. It improved and refined my taste levels, yet as the years have progressed, many accounts continue to post the same content, even recycling material from three or four years ago. As a result, digital archiving has become somewhat homogenised, with repetition overshadowing originality. Digital archiving would be great if the focus was purely on taste alone, but there is a delicate balance between curating what you genuinely like and sharing what performs well. This tension sometimes makes me question its authenticity—it’s not the purest form of archiving. I try to strike a balance between my own taste and what resonates with the algorithm.
@arcx1000: Back in 2018, I stumbled across @liljupiterr and loved its eclectic
mix of fashion, pop culture, and viral content. I liked how it felt curated, but effortless, so I started my own page, @jjarll, posting content ranging from sneakers and nostalgic video games to cultural moments that felt iconic. It grew to 80k followers before I scrapped it. I lost interest in the content. I wanted something more mature and refined, especially as my taste began to change when I started university. Creating @arcx1000, I wanted to focus on more curated content with stories and imagery that inspired me. Being someone who’s naturally curious, with a background in communication design and advertising, I began to see my page as an extension of my personal style. It became a platform that not only expressed my own tastes, but also resonated with a much larger audience, building a community around shared interests.
@durangoism: I wanted to create a catalogue of my interests, things I read about for hours on end for fun, but didn’t have anyone around me to meaningfully discuss
them with. The posts I dedicate time and research on pertain to historical, political, ideological and cultural themes, so in the meantime, I seek out photographs that capture those elements in unexpected settings. I make a point of putting my personality and humour on display to stick out from the hundreds of faceless archive pages. There are underlying references to my values and beliefs, but I try to project broad appeal for an international audience.
How has the internet changed how we archive and what history represents?
@arcx1000: The internet has made archivists out of all of us. Whether we realise it or not, we are constantly curating, saving posts, making Pinterest boards, sending screenshots to friends. But there is a flip side. Narratives can shift the moment something is reposted. In the archive community, content is constantly being repurposed, rewritten and even translated. One small mistake, and suddenly fiction becomes fact.
@durangoism: The internet has unleashed perspectives from around the world, both artistic and political. For example, a lot of my posts cover or allude to 20th century radicalism. In many cases, these figures or movements are cast negatively in the US, but access to information has partially rehabilitated their images or at the very least provided perspectives that challenge the narratives people grew up hearing. At the end of the day, people are entitled to their opinions, but because of the internet, outright ignorance is now a choice.
@ritualstudies: By drowning us in an unceasing flood of data. We’re overwhelmed by an endless stream of fragmented information [think doomscrolling] that makes it difficult to create meaningful stories within the context of our lives. Everything starts to feel disjointed, and the representation of history becomes scattered and lost. Examples of this include ‘digital echo chambers’ and ‘schizo-posting’, where internet users grasp at straws to form coherent narratives that provide meaning. So, even though we have more access to archival materials than ever, the internet can be a destabilising force. I believe the only way to combat this is by infusing meaning back into our lives, creating more than we consume online. This idea is one of the main reasons I started my page.
What is your research process?
@aaarchivist: When I’m scrolling through my phone – whether watching reels or browsing content – I come across things that are sometimes useful, sometimes not. Regardless, I save everything for inspiration. Even if it’s just a random picture, I can incorporate it into a larger post featuring multiple individual images. In a way, I’m ‘upcycling’ my camera roll, which has proven to be extremely effective. Recently, I’ve realised that when I actively search for content, the results are never as good as the posts I discover or create spontaneously.
@arcx1000: Structured chaos. My computer and phone are full of images, clips and references. Typically, I will send things that I want to repost to myself as reminders and, occasionally, I will track things down meticulously, running reverse image searches and scouring through comments.
@ritualstudies: For me, the internet is a mysterious, mystical place. It is an endless source of inspiration where everything comes alive, and I can’t help but get lost in it. My research process is driven by obsession— whatever captures my attention at a given moment becomes my focus. I tend to get deeply immersed in things, endlessly inspired, and my interests constantly evolve, often circling around big, primordial themes and symbols. Thrifted books and vintage magazines are also a constant source of inspiration, drawing me into the quiet mysteries of subjects ranging from the folk history of bridal veils to Rudolf Steiner’s take on the Gospels. Each thread of research links to the next, building a web of ideas that continuously fuels my work in a cycle of discovery.
Do you see yourself as an archaeologist of the present, past, or even the future?
@arcx1000: Maybe in a very loose sense. I wouldn’t call myself an archaeologist, but I do love the hunt. The process of digging, tracing things back to their origins, piecing together a story from some old Facebook post or Reddit thread. Sometimes, that will involve using reverse image search engines or scrolling through comment blog posts and comment sections. One image I recently looked into was a somewhat-viral shot of orcas diving through stormy waters off Nova Scotia’s coast, allegedly taken by a sword-fisherman named Chris Holmes. The image looked like a renaissance painting, but as I tried to find a higher- quality version, I stumbled into a wormhole of debates. Could orcas even be spotted there? Was the image real or AI-generated? That kind of curiosity-driven research is what I enjoy most about digital archiving.
@aaarchivist: I’ve been in the archive space for over five years, posting multiple times a day, and I’ve noticed a huge shift—there are now far more archive accounts than when I first started. With this rise, there’s also been an increase in repetitive content, with many accounts reposting the same material daily. For people who genuinely enjoy this kind of content, the constant repetition can be frustrating. I see this as motivation to ensure that everything I post is worth reading and looking at. This is where the ‘archaeologist’ aspect comes in. I feel a responsibility to dig deeper and find something unique—I spend hours scavenging the internet, searching for material that is truly worth discovering and sharing. The ‘digging up’ process connects to the past, while the ‘present’ aspect is about how I shape and present what I find.I also incorporate creativity into my work, sometimes combining older materials into something new, like in my Words You Need to Hear series, where I often create original texts. In that sense, I don’t just archive. I also reinterpret, making connections between the past and the present, and perhaps even curating for the future.
@ritualstudies: This question reminds me of a tweet that I can’t stop thinking about. It says something like, “I’m crawling around the internet on my hands and knees.” It really captures the idea that, in the digital age, everyone who’s online is simultaneously an archaeologist and the artifact being excavated. We’re constantly digging through the endless flow of information, searching for meaning, while adding our own stories to this infinite digital archive. Our online presence itself becomes an artifact—something that contributes to the ever-evolving, breathing landscape of the internet. It’s like an Inception situation, where every layer we add goes deeper and deeper, building new meaning on top of what’s already there. So, in a sense, we’re all shaping history in real time while preserving it for the future, and doing so in a way that’s self-reflective and ongoing.
Originally published in Dazed MENA Issue 01 | Order Here