In recent years there has been a substantial rise of digital archival accounts on Instagram. These accounts aim to document certain parts of internet history, one of the more contemporary approaches to archiving the long and sprawling internet. Accounts like ihategum, t.archivist, and feb.20.1995 focus on many different events throughout history.These events often fulfil a general purpose of catering to current internet news, and also being somewhat jarring to look at (somewhere in the vein of clickbait). These archives, though each has a different focus, are all generally tied by the string of uncovering alternative histories.
Though these accounts post some pretty outrageous and bizarre things, the maintenance of an archival gaze — where everything is often posted with the cold detachment of an analyst — is necessary for these accounts. This attitude generates a viewer’s feelings of simply gazing at an art book rather than being forced to form an opinion on everything by a dramatic headline. It’s the kind of experience one might have looking at Andy Warhol photos of naked people in the most famous Canadian gallery — as opposed to if you found those same photos in your friend's sock drawer. This is the magic of archives.
These views of alternative histories do scratch the very western itch of viewing the ‘bizarre’ — which I believe garners the accounts a large portion of their followings — but can also serve the much greater purpose of documenting largely undocumented histories.
If you are a queer person at all interested in your own history, you may have realized that researching said history is like trying to read the dictionary off a melted piece of swiss cheese — that is to say: spotty, confusing, and a little gross. These modern attempts at digitizing general histories have also been used to archive very specific histories, especially those of queer people. Accounts like thearquives, sexchange.tbt, and queer.cinema.archive all attempt to document and digitize the existence of queer people throughout history.
As with anything on the internet, there is so much lost in the sea of information that it still continues to be difficult to know what being queer — through the perspective of a queer person — was really like throughout history. Often what we’re left with is simply that it was painful. This is a very negative reality and doesn’t provide the whole range of experience of individuals throughout history.
Through these archival websites, we are presented with the reality that yes, it has been hard, but regardless, many live their lives full, long, and fulfilled. The individual stories of real people who have lived in their personal lives gives a beautifully varied perspective.
These archive accounts bring to the front those stories by scanning and posting older magazine pages and articles. Archival in this way also provides great bridges between modern and older queer culture, directly communicating with people from those older populations who had direct experience with the topic of said articles and magazines. Connections like these are wonderful and build stronger bonds between the generations, allowing the often obscured histories to be told straight from the mouth of those who lived through them.
There is this perception that the gap between older and younger generations is inevitable and occurs across all communities and stages. Part of this comes from advancing technology and the general disinterest and inability to learn new forms of technology, mainly the modern methods and forms of social media. However, the gap is one that is easily bridged when genuine interest and accommodation of social ground is had. The relationships between generations become incredibly important especially for historically marginalized people. Knowing where you come from is paramount to knowing where you may go next. It also helps us be aware when political and social tides start changing and what we can do about it.
In the modern queer internet, discourse about the most ridiculous things is constantly force fed to everyone to make both a mockery of queer people to outsiders, and also to distract from the far greater issues many face to this day. Something that always personally helps me when I feel stressed about the future is to look back and realize what I have already done and see how my thoughts have changed throughout the years, but also the things that have stayed the same all throughout.
These archives achieve this goal in spades and provide me with great comfort, even during the slurry of —what may feel like a neverending— political foolishness. Maybe these accounts can do that for you as well.
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