More than 1 billion people use Instagram each month, and more than 70 percent of those users are under the age of 35. Cut to the 1980s and the invention of the internet, fast-forward to the online forums of the late ’90s and early 2000s: Tumblr pages becoming sanctuaries, blogspots becoming full-blown anonymous advice columns, even AOL group chats where your internet ex first asked you “A/S/L?” These days, the road most traveled leads to Instagram meme accounts, one of the most contemporary forms of visibility, expression, and sanctuary. Though we cannot create such a utopia, at the very least we can try-and we’ve been trying online for more than 20 years. As sweet as it sounds, guaranteeing “safety” for anyone-let alone queer people-seems like a leap. I’m not convinced that there is such a thing as a safe space.
This article was published in Sanctuary Issue #85 | Winter 2020 Subscribe »
