{"id":1907005,"date":"2026-04-28T13:34:00","date_gmt":"2026-04-28T10:34:00","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/analyse.optim.biz\/?p=1907005"},"modified":"2026-04-28T13:34:00","modified_gmt":"2026-04-28T10:34:00","slug":"the-internet-made-us-archive-our-lives-now-we-want-out","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/analyse.optim.biz\/?p=1907005","title":{"rendered":"The internet made us archive our lives \u2013 now we want out"},"content":{"rendered":"<p>[analyse_image type=&#8221;featured&#8221; src=&#8221;https:\/\/images-prod.dazeddigital.com\/994\/28-82-994-662\/azure\/dazed-prod\/1440\/4\/1444062.jpeg&#8221;]<\/p>\n<article class=\"main-article standard \">\n<div class=\"article-main-content article-wrapper has-media-but-its-an-image\" data-status=\"loaded\" data-primary-article=\"true\" data-url=\"\/life-culture\/article\/70150\/1\/why-is-everyone-wiping-their-instagram-grids-charli-xcx-bad-bunny\" data-article-id=\"70150\">\n<header class=\"article-header has-landscape-image no-media\">\n<div class=\"wrapper dg-max-width\">\n<div class=\"inner\">\n<figure class=\"main-img has-figcaption\" data-img-aspect-ratio-type=\"landscape\" data-img-aspect-ratio=\"1.38\" data-template=\"Standard Article\"><span class=\"has-css-custom-props image-container\" data-aspect-ratio-type=\"landscape\"><span class=\"preserve-aspect-ratio\"><img loading=\"lazy\" decoding=\"async\" alt=\"Erupcja\" class=\"img\" height=\"744\" src=\"https:\/\/images-prod.dazeddigital.com\/1024\/azure\/dazed-prod\/1440\/4\/1444062.jpeg\" width=\"1024\"><\/span><\/span><figcaption class=\"img-caption\"><span class=\"inner\"><span class=\"credit\">Erupcja (2025)<\/span><\/span><\/figcaption><\/figure>\n<aside class=\"meta\">\n<div class=\"inner\"><time datetime=\"2026-04-28T13:34:00+00:00\" class=\"timestamp\" title=\"28 April 2026\"><span class=\"month\">April<\/span>\u00a0<br \/>\n<span class=\"day\" data-day=\"28\">28,<\/span>\u00a0<br \/>\n<span class=\"year\">2026<\/span><\/time><\/div>\n<\/aside>\n<div class=\"titles\">\n<div class=\"tags\">\n<div class=\"sections\"><a class=\"category vertical - life-culture\" href=\"https:\/\/www.dazeddigital.com\/life-culture\">Life &amp; Culture<\/a><br \/>\n\/<br \/>\n<a class=\"series\" href=\"https:\/\/www.dazeddigital.com\/feature\">Feature<\/a><\/div>\n<\/div>\n<div class=\"standard-tag-container\"><a class=\"standard-category\" href=\"https:\/\/www.dazeddigital.com\/life-culture\">Life &amp; Culture<\/a> \/<br \/>\n<a class=\"standard-series\" href=\"https:\/\/www.dazeddigital.com\/feature\">Feature<\/a><\/div>\n<h1 class=\"title\"><span>The internet made us archive our lives \u2013 now we <span class=\"nowrap\">want out<\/span><\/span><\/h1>\n<div class=\"standfirst\">\n<h2>No longer reserved for celebrities like Charli xcx and Bad Bunny, wiping your Instagram grid has become a way for ordinary users to reclaim control over an internet that feels <span class=\"nowrap\">\u2018too permanent\u2019<\/span><\/h2>\n<\/div>\n<p><time datetime=\"2026-04-28T13:34:00+00:00\" class=\"timestamp\" title=\"28 April 2026\"><span class=\"month\">April<\/span>\u00a0<br \/>\n<span class=\"day\" data-day=\"28\">28,<\/span>\u00a0<br \/>\n<span class=\"year\">2026<\/span><\/time><\/div>\n<\/div>\n<p><time datetime=\"2026-04-28T13:34:00+00:00\" class=\"timestamp\" title=\"28 April 2026\"><span class=\"month\">April<\/span>\u00a0<br \/>\n<span class=\"day\" data-day=\"28\">28,<\/span>\u00a0<br \/>\n<span class=\"year\">2026<\/span><\/time><\/p>\n<div class=\"providers\">\n<div class=\"contributors\"><span class=\"contributor\" data-contributor-role=\"Text\"><span class=\"contributor-role\">Text<\/span><a class=\"contributor-name\" href=\"https:\/\/www.dazeddigital.com\/user\/laurapitcher\">Laura Pitcher<\/a><\/span><\/div>\n<\/div>\n<\/div>\n<\/header>\n<div class=\"article-body-container\">\n<div class=\"article-body wrapper\">\n<div class=\"embed-content\" data-embed-type=\"raw-html\">\n<p><span>Last year, Lillian Ahenkan \u2013 the artist-priestess better known as<\/span><a href=\"https:\/\/www.instagram.com\/flex.mami\/\"><span>Flex Mami<\/span><\/a><span> \u2013 cleared her entire Instagram grid. After more than a decade as a content creator, she was in Ghana writing her second book, a shadow-work journal titled<\/span><a href=\"https:\/\/www.penguin.com.au\/books\/ask-yourself-this-9781761355844\"><em><span>Ask Yourself This<\/span><\/em><\/a><span>, and felt entitled to what she called a \u201cclean slate\u201d: a chance to reintroduce herself to the world online. \u201cIt took about eight hours in practice to wipe thousands of posts \u2013 hundreds of thousands of hours of free content with the perhaps naive expectation that I\u2019d feel more connected to the people who I share online space,\u201d she says. \u201cA belief that whatever messages were there, we received, and if they weren\u2019t, I trust that whatever I say now is way more potent.\u201d<\/span><\/p>\n<p><span>Ahenkan isn\u2019t the only one wiping her digital footprint. It\u2019s an old-school marketing tactic for celebrities looking to signal a new project or rebrand (although I\u2019m sure they\u2019re not the ones deleting everything by hand). Taylor Swift did it in 2017 to mark the start of her <\/span><em><span>Reputation<\/span><\/em><span> era. Bad Bunny cleared his feed shortly after his Super Bowl performance. Just this month, Charli xcx wiped everything, only to return with<\/span><a href=\"https:\/\/www.instagram.com\/p\/DXKBNYWkaH-\/\"><span>a grainy black-and-white photo<\/span><\/a><span> teasing her upcoming rock album. \u201cIt\u2019s always fascinating to see how people, from global icons to everyday people, treat their Instagram profile as a canvas,\u201d says Tessa Lyons, VP of Product, Instagram. It\u2019s also another sign of how personal branding \u2013 once a necessary part of celebrity culture \u2013 has trickled down into everyday life, even for people who don\u2019t have an album coming out.<\/span><\/p>\n<p><span>So what does it say about our relationship to the internet that the laborious process of wiping your entire grid has gone somewhat mainstream? For photographer Emily Lipson, it speaks to a craving for an \u201cinternet expiration date\u201d. \u201cSometimes I look at my feed, and I see this thing I did 5 years ago, and I\u2019m like, oh god. It feels so old,\u201d she says. \u201cWhy do we still have to look at it? The internet is too permanent in this way.\u201d The shift points to a newer (and almost ironic) conundrum: part of the internet\u2019s original appeal was that it offered us a way to document our lives and imagine that some piece of us might live on forever. But somewhere along the way, between the rise of curated feeds, influencer culture and the resurfacing of old celebrity tweets, our relationship to digital footprints changed.\u00a0<\/span><\/p>\n<\/div>\n<div class=\"embed-content\" data-embed-type=\"raw-html\">\n<blockquote>\n<p>\u201cFor celebs, it comes down to awareness of two things: the permanence of the internet and the attention economy. For us normies, it\u2019s probably more of an identity crisis\u201d<\/p>\n<\/blockquote>\n<\/div>\n<div class=\"embed-content\" data-embed-type=\"raw-html\">\n<p><span>For many, the humble Instagram grid has become just another box to put ourselves in \u2013 and one we now want to break out of. Lipson, for example, wishes creators had more control over the work that exists online, or that it would at least disappear after a certain point. \u201cI sometimes wish the footprint were gone, and my current work were all that was available,\u201d she says. After years of being \u201cmined\u201d for content, Ahenkan has now wiped her feed upwards of ten times, viewing her online presence as a \u201cbat signal\u201d and an extension of her in-person priorities. \u201cI\u2019m simply addicted to the choice of waiving what feels outdated,\u201d she says. \u201cI think it\u2019s the collective thought leaders gaining sentience, realising that a big chunk of reality moves at the pace of our willingness to change what we do.\u201d\u00a0<\/span><\/p>\n<p><span>We can trace the craving for an impermanent internet through the rise of Snapchat, and later Stories on Instagram and TikTok, as people feel more comfortable sharing their lives when they know the post will disappear after 24 hours. The anxiety around posting to our \u201cmain grids\u201d goes hand in hand with the professionalisation and monetisation of social platforms. Once a place to actually be social and connect with friends, the internet has, for the generation that grew up online \u2013 and therefore has the most extensive digital footprints \u2013 become a place where some people rocket up career ladders while others lose jobs because of what they post. Now, that same generation is growing into adulthood and trying to take control of how they are perceived in the process.<\/span><\/p>\n<p><span>\u201c<\/span><span>I posted whatever I wanted: I would go on Instagram live, taking shots with my friends or doing OOTDs in the Wawa bathroom,\u201d says <\/span><span>Nat, a 26-year-old culinary student in Brooklyn. \u201cBut a f<\/span><span>ew months ago, my culinary school advisor told us Instagram serves as a food portfolio and encouraged us to leverage it, with the note that if we were uncomfortable with our grandmother seeing a post, it probably shouldn\u2019t be up \u2013 employers look at that too.\u201d Because of this, Nat wiped her entire feed this year. She says her friends often talk (and joke) about wiping their feeds: some are wary about the wrong person coming across an old post, but others just yearn for a simpler, private life.\u00a0<\/span><\/p>\n<p><span>Carolyn Zou, a 28-year-old filmmaker in Sydney, has wiped her feed a few times over the years. They had <\/span><span>accumulated a lot of \u201cteenage shit-posts\u201d, so the wipes were often a lonely, late-night endeavour. \u201cI did feel attached and took endless screenshots of old posts and their comments before deleting anything,\u201d she says. \u201cThen, Instagram introduced the archive feature, which completely lifted the nostalgic burden.\u201d Now, she archives posts freely, treating her digital presence less like a \u201cjunk journal\u201d and more like a curated portfolio. \u201c<\/span><span>F<\/span><span>or celebs, it comes down to awareness of two things: the permanence of the internet and the attention economy,\u201d they say. \u201cFor us normies, it&#8217;s probably more of an identity crisis.\u201d<\/span><\/p>\n<\/div>\n<div class=\"embed-content\" data-embed-type=\"raw-html\">\n<blockquote>\n<p>\u201c<span>I feel a lot of relief in wiping my grid clean, in the same way that I feel when I get a brand new notebook. You don\u2019t get a lot of blank slates in life, and this isn&#8217;t necessarily that, but it feels pretty damn close<\/span>\u201d<\/p>\n<\/blockquote>\n<\/div>\n<div class=\"embed-content\" data-embed-type=\"raw-html-embed\">\n<p><span>The desire for a fresh start online, however, is not just a celebrity matter \u2013 it\u2019s likely a direct response to the rise of surveillance capitalism. In a time when AI is supercharging the power of surveillance technology, our own social platforms are the places where we can pretend we have any control over the role of technology in our lives. \u201c<\/span><span>I feel a lot of relief in wiping my grid clean, in the same way that I feel when I get a brand new notebook,\u201d says Sara Jin Li, a 29-year-old filmmaker in Brooklyn who clears her Instagram grid every couple of months. \u201cYou don\u2019t get a lot of blank slates in life, and this isn&#8217;t necessarily that, but it feels pretty damn close.\u201d\u00a0<\/span><\/p>\n<div class=\"text-base my-auto mx-auto pb-10 [--thread-content-margin:var(--thread-content-margin-xs,calc(var(--spacing)*4))] @w-sm\/main:[--thread-content-margin:var(--thread-content-margin-sm,calc(var(--spacing)*6))] @w-lg\/main:[--thread-content-margin:var(--thread-content-margin-lg,calc(var(--spacing)*16))] px-(--thread-content-margin)\">\n<div class=\"[--thread-content-max-width:40rem] @w-lg\/main:[--thread-content-max-width:48rem] mx-auto max-w-(--thread-content-max-width) flex-1 group\/turn-messages focus-visible:outline-hidden relative flex w-full min-w-0 flex-col agent-turn\">\n<div class=\"flex max-w-full flex-col gap-4 grow\">\n<div class=\"min-h-8 text-message relative flex w-full flex-col items-end gap-2 text-start break-words whitespace-normal outline-none keyboard-focused:focus-ring [.text-message+&amp;]:mt-1\" data-message-author-role=\"assistant\" data-message-id=\"7dbe4c7f-cca9-4dc2-a610-523078fbc4ad\" data-message-model-slug=\"gpt-5-4-thinking\" data-turn-start-message=\"true\">\n<div class=\"flex w-full flex-col gap-1 empty:hidden\">\n<div class=\"markdown prose dark:prose-invert w-full wrap-break-word light markdown-new-styling\">\n<p data-start=\"34\" data-end=\"624\" data-is-last-node data-is-only-node>When you think about it, trying to capture the essence of a person through a feed was a ludicrous endeavour to begin with. Although personal-brand culture has normalised the curation of personhood into neat content categories, our lives \u2013 and we ourselves \u2013 are constantly in flux. \u201cWhat you posted a decade ago or even a year ago probably doesn\u2019t reflect who you are now, but these posts are trapped in the proverbial amber, right?\u201d says Jin Li. To wipe your social media clean, then, can be understood as a way of refusing to hold yourself to the standard of an older version of yourself.<\/p>\n<\/div>\n<\/div>\n<\/div>\n<\/div>\n<\/div>\n<\/div>\n<p><span>Mel, a 31-year-old model in Cincinnati, wiped their entire feed two months after their dear friend passed. \u201cI felt like I was just bleeding everywhere and couldn\u2019t stop,\u201d they say. \u201cI posted some stories and photos of us together and then took them down and put them back up again because I just couldn\u2019t hack.\u201d Nothing online made sense anymore. They felt like a piece of them died \u2013 so it didn\u2019t make sense to exist on social media in the same way. <\/span><\/p>\n<p><span>For Matt Thompson, who is based in Ontario, it was Byung-Chul Han\u2019s <\/span><em><span>The Burnout Society<\/span><\/em><span> that inspired his deleting spree. He realised his ever-present feed had become a place to say \u201clook what I\u2019m doing with my time\u201d or \u201cI matter\u201d. \u201cWe feel endless pressure to show the world what we could be \u2013 that we have value in that we have potential,\u201d Thompson says. \u201cBut, in the end, it all returns to dust.\u201d<\/span><\/p>\n<\/div>\n<div id=\"newsletter-inline-last\">\n<div class=\"newsletter-small\">\n<div class=\"inner\">\n<h1 class=\"newsletter-title\">Escape the algorithm! 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class=\"card-latest__content\">\n<h3 class=\"card-latest__title\">evian\u2019s birthday party was straight out of a Wes Anderson movie<\/h3>\n<\/div>\n<p><\/a><\/div>\n<\/div>\n<\/div>\n<div class=\"swiper-slide list-element\">\n<div class=\"scard-latest__section\">\n<div class=\"card-latest__wrapper\"><a class=\"card-latest\" href=\"https:\/\/www.dazeddigital.com\/life-culture\/article\/70049\/1\/media-trained-pr-authenticity-zendaya-chappell-roan-timothee-chalamet\"><\/p>\n<div class=\"card-latest__img-wrapper\"><span class=\"image-container\" data-aspect-ratio-type=\"landscape\"><span class=\"preserve-aspect-ratio\"><img decoding=\"async\" alt=\"the drama\" src=\"https:\/\/images-prod.dazeddigital.com\/480\/87-0-873-581\/azure\/dazed-prod\/1440\/3\/1443066.jpeg\"><\/span><\/span><\/div>\n<div class=\"card-latest__content\">\n<h3 class=\"card-latest__title\">Nobody wants to seem \u2018media trained\u2019 anymore<\/h3>\n<\/div>\n<p><\/a><a class=\"card-latest\" href=\"https:\/\/www.dazeddigital.com\/life-culture\/article\/70047\/1\/why-do-friendship-breakups-hurt-so-much-painful-romantic-relationships-friends\"><\/p>\n<div class=\"card-latest__img-wrapper\"><span class=\"image-container\" data-aspect-ratio-type=\"landscape\"><span class=\"preserve-aspect-ratio\"><img decoding=\"async\" alt=\"sub-buzz-17141-1491859106-1\" src=\"https:\/\/images-prod.dazeddigital.com\/480\/0-1-1600-1064\/azure\/dazed-prod\/1440\/2\/1442983.jpg\"><\/span><\/span><\/div>\n<div class=\"card-latest__content\">\n<h3 class=\"card-latest__title\">Why do friendship breakups hurt so much?<\/h3>\n<\/div>\n<p><\/a><a class=\"card-latest\" href=\"https:\/\/www.dazeddigital.com\/life-culture\/article\/70031\/1\/the-rise-of-smut-smutty-book-clubs-acotar-romantasy-romance-fiction-novels\"><\/p>\n<div class=\"card-latest__img-wrapper\"><span class=\"image-container\" data-aspect-ratio-type=\"landscape\"><span class=\"preserve-aspect-ratio\"><img decoding=\"async\" alt=\"83166\" src=\"https:\/\/images-prod.dazeddigital.com\/480\/337-0-1763-1173\/azure\/dazed-prod\/1440\/2\/1442873.jpeg\"><\/span><\/span><\/div>\n<div class=\"card-latest__content\">\n<h3 class=\"card-latest__title\">\u2018It\u2019s majorly addictive\u2019: The rise of smutty book clubs<\/h3>\n<\/div>\n<p><\/a><\/div>\n<\/div>\n<\/div>\n<\/div>\n<\/div>\n<\/div>\n<\/div>\n<div id=\"newsletter-inline\" data-newsletter hidden>\n<div class=\"newsletter-small\">\n<div class=\"inner\">\n<h1 class=\"newsletter-title\">Escape the algorithm! Get The Drop<\/h1>\n<div class=\"meta-row\">\n<p class=\"meta\">Get must-see stories direct to your inbox every weekday.<\/p>\n<p class=\"paragraph\"><a href=\"https:\/\/www.dazeddigital.com\/privacy-policy\" class=\"meta-link\" target=\"_blank\" rel=\"noopener\"><br \/>\nPrivacy policy<br \/>\n<\/a><\/p>\n<\/div>\n<div class=\"confirmation\" aria-live=\"polite\">\n<p class=\"confirmation-title\">Thank you. You have been subscribed<\/p>\n<p><a href=\"https:\/\/www.dazeddigital.com\/privacy-policy\" class=\"meta-link\" target=\"_blank\" rel=\"noopener\"><br \/>\nPrivacy policy<br \/>\n<\/a><\/div>\n<\/div>\n<\/div>\n<\/div>\n<\/article>\n<div class=\"article-body wrapper\">\n<div class=\"embed-content\" data-embed-type=\"raw-html\">\n<p><span>Last year, Lillian Ahenkan \u2013 the artist-priestess better known as<\/span><a href=\"https:\/\/www.instagram.com\/flex.mami\/\"><span>Flex Mami<\/span><\/a><span> \u2013 cleared her entire Instagram grid. After more than a decade as a content creator, she was in Ghana writing her second book, a shadow-work journal titled<\/span><a href=\"https:\/\/www.penguin.com.au\/books\/ask-yourself-this-9781761355844\"><em><span>Ask Yourself This<\/span><\/em><\/a><span>, and felt entitled to what she called a \u201cclean slate\u201d: a chance to reintroduce herself to the world online. \u201cIt took about eight hours in practice to wipe thousands of posts \u2013 hundreds of thousands of hours of free content with the perhaps naive expectation that I\u2019d feel more connected to the people who I share online space,\u201d she says. \u201cA belief that whatever messages were there, we received, and if they weren\u2019t, I trust that whatever I say now is way more potent.\u201d<\/span><\/p>\n<p><span>Ahenkan isn\u2019t the only one wiping her digital footprint. It\u2019s an old-school marketing tactic for celebrities looking to signal a new project or rebrand (although I\u2019m sure they\u2019re not the ones deleting everything by hand). Taylor Swift did it in 2017 to mark the start of her <\/span><em><span>Reputation<\/span><\/em><span> era. Bad Bunny cleared his feed shortly after his Super Bowl performance. Just this month, Charli xcx wiped everything, only to return with<\/span><a href=\"https:\/\/www.instagram.com\/p\/DXKBNYWkaH-\/\"><span>a grainy black-and-white photo<\/span><\/a><span> teasing her upcoming rock album. \u201cIt\u2019s always fascinating to see how people, from global icons to everyday people, treat their Instagram profile as a canvas,\u201d says Tessa Lyons, VP of Product, Instagram. It\u2019s also another sign of how personal branding \u2013 once a necessary part of celebrity culture \u2013 has trickled down into everyday life, even for people who don\u2019t have an album coming out.<\/span><\/p>\n<p><span>So what does it say about our relationship to the internet that the laborious process of wiping your entire grid has gone somewhat mainstream? For photographer Emily Lipson, it speaks to a craving for an \u201cinternet expiration date\u201d. \u201cSometimes I look at my feed, and I see this thing I did 5 years ago, and I\u2019m like, oh god. It feels so old,\u201d she says. \u201cWhy do we still have to look at it? The internet is too permanent in this way.\u201d The shift points to a newer (and almost ironic) conundrum: part of the internet\u2019s original appeal was that it offered us a way to document our lives and imagine that some piece of us might live on forever. But somewhere along the way, between the rise of curated feeds, influencer culture and the resurfacing of old celebrity tweets, our relationship to digital footprints changed.\u00a0<\/span><\/p>\n<\/div>\n<div class=\"embed-content\" data-embed-type=\"raw-html\">\n<blockquote>\n<p>\u201cFor celebs, it comes down to awareness of two things: the permanence of the internet and the attention economy. For us normies, it\u2019s probably more of an identity crisis\u201d<\/p>\n<\/blockquote>\n<\/div>\n<div class=\"embed-content\" data-embed-type=\"raw-html\">\n<p><span>For many, the humble Instagram grid has become just another box to put ourselves in \u2013 and one we now want to break out of. Lipson, for example, wishes creators had more control over the work that exists online, or that it would at least disappear after a certain point. \u201cI sometimes wish the footprint were gone, and my current work were all that was available,\u201d she says. After years of being \u201cmined\u201d for content, Ahenkan has now wiped her feed upwards of ten times, viewing her online presence as a \u201cbat signal\u201d and an extension of her in-person priorities. \u201cI\u2019m simply addicted to the choice of waiving what feels outdated,\u201d she says. \u201cI think it\u2019s the collective thought leaders gaining sentience, realising that a big chunk of reality moves at the pace of our willingness to change what we do.\u201d\u00a0<\/span><\/p>\n<p><span>We can trace the craving for an impermanent internet through the rise of Snapchat, and later Stories on Instagram and TikTok, as people feel more comfortable sharing their lives when they know the post will disappear after 24 hours. The anxiety around posting to our \u201cmain grids\u201d goes hand in hand with the professionalisation and monetisation of social platforms. Once a place to actually be social and connect with friends, the internet has, for the generation that grew up online \u2013 and therefore has the most extensive digital footprints \u2013 become a place where some people rocket up career ladders while others lose jobs because of what they post. Now, that same generation is growing into adulthood and trying to take control of how they are perceived in the process.<\/span><\/p>\n<p><span>\u201c<\/span><span>I posted whatever I wanted: I would go on Instagram live, taking shots with my friends or doing OOTDs in the Wawa bathroom,\u201d says <\/span><span>Nat, a 26-year-old culinary student in Brooklyn. \u201cBut a f<\/span><span>ew months ago, my culinary school advisor told us Instagram serves as a food portfolio and encouraged us to leverage it, with the note that if we were uncomfortable with our grandmother seeing a post, it probably shouldn\u2019t be up \u2013 employers look at that too.\u201d Because of this, Nat wiped her entire feed this year. She says her friends often talk (and joke) about wiping their feeds: some are wary about the wrong person coming across an old post, but others just yearn for a simpler, private life.\u00a0<\/span><\/p>\n<p><span>Carolyn Zou, a 28-year-old filmmaker in Sydney, has wiped her feed a few times over the years. They had <\/span><span>accumulated a lot of \u201cteenage shit-posts\u201d, so the wipes were often a lonely, late-night endeavour. \u201cI did feel attached and took endless screenshots of old posts and their comments before deleting anything,\u201d she says. \u201cThen, Instagram introduced the archive feature, which completely lifted the nostalgic burden.\u201d Now, she archives posts freely, treating her digital presence less like a \u201cjunk journal\u201d and more like a curated portfolio. \u201c<\/span><span>F<\/span><span>or celebs, it comes down to awareness of two things: the permanence of the internet and the attention economy,\u201d they say. \u201cFor us normies, it&#8217;s probably more of an identity crisis.\u201d<\/span><\/p>\n<\/div>\n<div class=\"embed-content\" data-embed-type=\"raw-html\">\n<blockquote>\n<p>\u201c<span>I feel a lot of relief in wiping my grid clean, in the same way that I feel when I get a brand new notebook. You don\u2019t get a lot of blank slates in life, and this isn&#8217;t necessarily that, but it feels pretty damn close<\/span>\u201d<\/p>\n<\/blockquote>\n<\/div>\n<div class=\"embed-content\" data-embed-type=\"raw-html-embed\">\n<p><span>The desire for a fresh start online, however, is not just a celebrity matter \u2013 it\u2019s likely a direct response to the rise of surveillance capitalism. In a time when AI is supercharging the power of surveillance technology, our own social platforms are the places where we can pretend we have any control over the role of technology in our lives. \u201c<\/span><span>I feel a lot of relief in wiping my grid clean, in the same way that I feel when I get a brand new notebook,\u201d says Sara Jin Li, a 29-year-old filmmaker in Brooklyn who clears her Instagram grid every couple of months. \u201cYou don\u2019t get a lot of blank slates in life, and this isn&#8217;t necessarily that, but it feels pretty damn close.\u201d\u00a0<\/span><\/p>\n<div class=\"text-base my-auto mx-auto pb-10 [--thread-content-margin:var(--thread-content-margin-xs,calc(var(--spacing)*4))] @w-sm\/main:[--thread-content-margin:var(--thread-content-margin-sm,calc(var(--spacing)*6))] @w-lg\/main:[--thread-content-margin:var(--thread-content-margin-lg,calc(var(--spacing)*16))] px-(--thread-content-margin)\">\n<div class=\"[--thread-content-max-width:40rem] @w-lg\/main:[--thread-content-max-width:48rem] mx-auto max-w-(--thread-content-max-width) flex-1 group\/turn-messages focus-visible:outline-hidden relative flex w-full min-w-0 flex-col agent-turn\">\n<div class=\"flex max-w-full flex-col gap-4 grow\">\n<div class=\"min-h-8 text-message relative flex w-full flex-col items-end gap-2 text-start break-words whitespace-normal outline-none keyboard-focused:focus-ring [.text-message+&amp;]:mt-1\" data-message-author-role=\"assistant\" data-message-id=\"7dbe4c7f-cca9-4dc2-a610-523078fbc4ad\" data-message-model-slug=\"gpt-5-4-thinking\" data-turn-start-message=\"true\">\n<div class=\"flex w-full flex-col gap-1 empty:hidden\">\n<div class=\"markdown prose dark:prose-invert w-full wrap-break-word light markdown-new-styling\">\n<p data-start=\"34\" data-end=\"624\" data-is-last-node data-is-only-node>When you think about it, trying to capture the essence of a person through a feed was a ludicrous endeavour to begin with. Although personal-brand culture has normalised the curation of personhood into neat content categories, our lives \u2013 and we ourselves \u2013 are constantly in flux. \u201cWhat you posted a decade ago or even a year ago probably doesn\u2019t reflect who you are now, but these posts are trapped in the proverbial amber, right?\u201d says Jin Li. To wipe your social media clean, then, can be understood as a way of refusing to hold yourself to the standard of an older version of yourself.<\/p>\n<\/div>\n<\/div>\n<\/div>\n<\/div>\n<\/div>\n<\/div>\n<p><span>Mel, a 31-year-old model in Cincinnati, wiped their entire feed two months after their dear friend passed. \u201cI felt like I was just bleeding everywhere and couldn\u2019t stop,\u201d they say. \u201cI posted some stories and photos of us together and then took them down and put them back up again because I just couldn\u2019t hack.\u201d Nothing online made sense anymore. They felt like a piece of them died \u2013 so it didn\u2019t make sense to exist on social media in the same way. <\/span><\/p>\n<p><span>For Matt Thompson, who is based in Ontario, it was Byung-Chul Han\u2019s <\/span><em><span>The Burnout Society<\/span><\/em><span> that inspired his deleting spree. He realised his ever-present feed had become a place to say \u201clook what I\u2019m doing with my time\u201d or \u201cI matter\u201d. \u201cWe feel endless pressure to show the world what we could be \u2013 that we have value in that we have potential,\u201d Thompson says. \u201cBut, in the end, it all returns to dust.\u201d<\/span><\/p>\n<\/div>\n<div id=\"newsletter-inline-last\">\n<div class=\"newsletter-small\">\n<div class=\"inner\">\n<h1 class=\"newsletter-title\">Escape the algorithm! Get The Drop<\/h1>\n<div class=\"meta-row\">\n<p class=\"meta\">Get must-see stories direct to your inbox every weekday.<\/p>\n<p class=\"paragraph\"><a href=\"https:\/\/www.dazeddigital.com\/privacy-policy\" class=\"meta-link\" target=\"_blank\" rel=\"noopener\"><br \/>\nPrivacy policy<br \/>\n<\/a><\/p>\n<\/div>\n<div class=\"confirmation\" aria-live=\"polite\">\n<p class=\"confirmation-title\">Thank you. You have been subscribed<\/p>\n<p><a href=\"https:\/\/www.dazeddigital.com\/privacy-policy\" class=\"meta-link\" target=\"_blank\" rel=\"noopener\"><br \/>\nPrivacy policy<br \/>\n<\/a><\/div>\n<\/div>\n<\/div>\n<\/div>\n<\/div>\n<p>[analyse_source url=&#8221;https:\/\/www.dazeddigital.com\/life-culture\/article\/70150\/1\/why-is-everyone-wiping-their-instagram-grids-charli-xcx-bad-bunny&#8221;]<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"<p>[analyse_image type=&#8221;featured&#8221; src=&#8221;https:\/\/images-prod.dazeddigital.com\/994\/28-82-994-662\/azure\/dazed-prod\/1440\/4\/1444062.jpeg&#8221;] Erupcja (2025) April\u00a0 28,\u00a0 2026 Life &amp; Culture \/ Feature Life &amp; Culture \/ Feature The internet made us archive our lives \u2013 now we want out No longer reserved for celebrities like Charli xcx and Bad Bunny, wiping your Instagram grid has become a way for ordinary users to reclaim control [&hellip;]<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":1,"featured_media":0,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[2],"tags":[226,76],"class_list":["post-1907005","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","hentry","category-politics","tag-crawlmanager","tag-dazeddigital-com"],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/analyse.optim.biz\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts\/1907005","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/analyse.optim.biz\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/analyse.optim.biz\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/analyse.optim.biz\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/users\/1"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/analyse.optim.biz\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fcomments&post=1907005"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/analyse.optim.biz\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts\/1907005\/revisions"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/analyse.optim.biz\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fmedia&parent=1907005"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/analyse.optim.biz\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fcategories&post=1907005"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/analyse.optim.biz\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Ftags&post=1907005"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}