The Politics of Merely Following: Witnessing AIDS on Instagram

Using an illustrative sample of posts to an Instagram account devoted to commemorating lives lost to AIDS, this article articulates a less-than-intense form of engagement with lesbian, gay, bisexual, transgender, and queer (LGBTQ+) politics on social media. Merely following particular accounts on social media networks enables an encounter with an Other that is shaped by the affordances of digital technologies and the specificities of particular platforms. A site of political engagement that is further contoured by hierarchies of sex, race, and gender, @theaidsmemorial offers evidence of user experiences that are less focused and intentional than those typically associated with progressive sexual politics. Nevertheless, the author argues that they are meaningful because of how they expose users to bodies, lives, and desires they may not encounter if not for social media.