Bored Panda has also reached out to Celena, an admin of another Instagram community, to find out more about curating accounts with this specific genre of pictures. First, we asked how she came up with the concept of the Cursedimages2009 profile. We found out that: “I came up with this concept for this account back in 2013-2014 when I was using Tumblr. Tumblr was a great place for finding cursed or liminal space images. I wanted to be a part of that community and decided to move those images over to Instagram.”
Asked if there are any specific guidelines or principles Celena follows when selecting images to ensure they align with the overall aesthetic of the account, she answered: “The aesthetic I choose to follow is low quality, out of context, and the least amount of Photoshop.”
Next, we wanted to know if there are any evolving trends or preferences within the cursed images community over time. Celena shared with us: “I remember a time when the trend was beans being put in random things like shoes for example. I wasn’t really that into those, honestly, haha. I remember there was 1 photo a few years back that was AI-created, I believe, and the caption would be something like 'Name at least 1 thing in this photo.' And the photo was just basically a whole lot of nothing.”
Then she continued: “Instagram has made their guidelines super tough out of nowhere, it feels like. A lot of my mutuals got their accounts banned or Instagram has restricted them. Accounts that come to mind are 'uncomfort' and '2003deathmemes' which have become ghost accounts due to how aggressive Instagram guidelines are with posts that aren’t offensive to anyone. It's just images out of context. Doesn’t feel harmful. It’s crazy because of how much other content is allowed on this site and doesn’t get taken down.”
Lastly, we wanted to know how Celena handles potential controversies or concerns that may arise from posting disturbing or abnormal content. She told us: “I try not to post offensive things because Instagram guidelines are pretty random. I’ve had a lot of nice people DM me a few times with context behind some photos regarding the person in the photos being super problematic people. I just archive the posts. The internet is an ugly place and I don’t want to be a part of the racism, homophobia, transphobia, colorism, xenophobia, etc. I don’t tolerate any of that. I wouldn’t say my page was created to be a safe space but I hope people are able to view my account as one.”
