Virtual Tools for IRL Problems

www.instagram.com/sexo_y_revolucion/?hl=enIn a growing environment of censorship, in which the right and far right have targeted the study and teaching of queer history internationally as a scapegoat for political gain, the internet has become a refuge to those looking for information regarding queer history. 1 Online, public history plays an important role in filling gaps of knowledge that cannot be filled easily anywhere else.The sharing of queer history on the internet is an important intervention against its censorship elsewhere.This essay is a review of queer public history on social media, especially Instagram (IG).I will center my attention on five Instagram pages that I consider to be part of a growing corpus of internet historiography focused on queer history. 2 I use "queerness" here to signify the rejection of what lesbian-feminism has called compulsory heterosexuality, a challenge to the imposition of heterosexuality as an ideology, and not only a sexual orientation. 3This review begins with The AIDS Memorial, an IG page dedicated to those who fell victim to the AIDS pandemic in the 1980s and 1990s that got some attention recently thanks to the Queen of Pop, Madonna. 4 Madonna used some of the site's 1 Aviva Dove-Viebahn, "BANNED: Gender, Race and Sexualities," Ms. Magazine, 2023, https:// msmagazine.com/2023/06/16/florida-book-ban-gender-sexuality-race-black-women-history/.2 Although some of these projects are active on other sites, all use Instagram, so the platform allows the most useful comparison.3 Adrienne Rich, "Compulsory Heterosexuality and Lesbian Existence," Journal of Women's History 15, no. 3 (Autumn 2003), 11-48.4 The AIDS Memorial Instagram Page, https://www.instagram.com/theaidsmemorial/?hl=en.