Note: Short excerpt of a slideshow of cursed image archives from my ever-expanding collection. Originally 600 ish negatives shown in 15 second intervals, looping every 2 hours and a half.
For the past year, I've undertaken the eternal Sisyphean task of archiving viral Internet images. Often referred to as “cursed”, these images are flagged by community guidelines on most social media. Independent Internet Archivists, a.k.a. Meme Page Admins, dedicate their waking hours to making these images available to social media users. Many of these accounts are disfavoured by algorithms and are constantly pursued by the Internet Police. Users report their content, and bots flag them, resulting in the removal of many pages. Private communities on Reddit, in telegram chats and discord servers, form around maintaining cursed images “alive”.
Algorithms target explicitly violent or sexual content, ironically making these the most widely circulated images. Whether candid or staged, they often comment on social taboos related to our primal drives—sex and violence. The grotesque, user-generated, and pixelated content offers a peek into the depths of our collective psyche, addressing repressed desires and unconscious fixations. The frequent removal and concealment of these images reveal the tension between our shameful desires and public domain politics, which label certain things as perverse or taboo. The disturbing nature of these images exposes negative aspects of human behaviour, leading many to prefer their removal due to the discomfort they evoke. Thus, we shamefully erase them, avoiding a confrontation with elements we dislike about ourselves. Can the grotesque ever be beautiful?
I argue that yes. These negative images are vital digital archives that must be preserved. Their digital nature seemingly undermines their value, lacking the physicality of relics from a bygone era. These images exist ephemerally and can be lost if a page or server gets taken down. Unlike an empire or institution, the internet lacks incentives to preserve these images for future generations. Until we find ways to protect them from disappearing, it falls upon us, the users and consumers of these images, to keep them in circulation.
Cursed Image Screensavers
