Artifaxing: “We’ve become so addicted to these supercomputers in our hands”

Framing the future — Predominantly publishing on Instagram and X, the account is one of social media’s most prominent archiving pages. We caught up with the mysterious figure behind it to chat about the internet’s past, present and future, finding inspiration and art in the age of AI.

This column first featured in Club Huck’s culture newsletter. Sign up for free here to make sure it lands in your inbox every month.

The internet is a lot of things in 2026. It’s a site of endless toxic debates, yet it’s a space of support and connection for many. It can be infuriating, but it can also be funny. It’s full of AI slop, but it’s also filled with endless creativity, art, culture and music. Ultimately, the internet is a giant contradiction, and perhaps humanity’s sharpest mirror.

Yet highlighting some of the positive sides of internet culture – and wider culture more generally – is the primary focus of Artifaxing, a predominantly Instagram and X based archive page. Run by one anonymous person who posts content multiple times a day, its tagline is “PRESERVING THE PAST, FRAMING THE FUTURE”, and with 1.3 million followers and counting on Instagram, it is one of the most prominent archive pages with a huge community surrounding it.

Posts can vary from highlighting vintage performance art, to photographs of ’00s Nintendo DS meetups, or even just a funny screenshot from a Hinge message. In many ways, it’s a very modern magazine for the age of platforms. And now it’s moving beyond simply publishing on the internet – its merch line has seen collaborations with artist Slawn, while in December, Artifaxing threw a packed Christmas party at New York’s Le Bain, bridging a gap between the online and IRL worlds that feels ever more fissured in the present day.

We caught up with the person behind Artifaxing to find out more about building community in the present day, leaving digital footprints, and the future of the internet in the age of AI.

• Read next: Jodie Ounsley: “Sometimes your biggest strength is admitting when you’re struggling”

What made you want to start Artifaxing?

I wanted a place where I could put all the things I was interested in a kind of moodboard. At first, I didn’t intend for it to become this big community – it was more of a personal project, but over time it turned into something way bigger. Now, I do it not only to highlight things that I find cool but to curate things around the community that myself and everyone who follows the page has helped build. We’re at 1.3 million now, so it’s pretty big.

That’s a lot of people. Do you do it all on your own, and how many times do you publish a day?

I typically publish anywhere from six to 10 posts a day, and everything that gets posted on the account is always myself. But in the last two years the account has skyrocketed, so I’ve built a small team that helps with things like developing products and organising in-person events. And a lot of those people are my friends.

What do you look for in an Artifaxing story? I love what you do with the account – it really got me thinking about what publishing means in the modern day. Artifaxing is basically a magazine that publishes on social media, isn’t it?

Yeah, in a way. It’s like blog culture as well. I would refer to Artifaxing as an archive page, and these kinds of pages have switched the paradigm of what being a blog or a magazine means. It’s different every time [what I post]. Sometimes it’s things I find funny, like I’ve done a post about a Subreddit of just terrible decks. Other times I will create a conversation through art I enjoy and know will stir up some controversy. Art is an integral piece of the page, and even if it might not please everybody, I think it’s important to not be scared to post things. And then sometimes it’s just stuff that I want to get out there. I do a lot of thought pieces that come directly from whatever is going on in my life at the time or whatever I’m thinking about. That’s what makes an Artifaxing story – it’s different each day.

• Read next: Activists hack London billboards to call out big tech harm

What spaces did you hang out in on the internet when you were growing up?

There was a lot of YouTube – watching Ray William Johnson and Philip DeFranco, just random YouTubers to learn about what was going on in the world at the time. I grew up during the PlayStation 2, PS3, Xbox 360 era, so a lot of time was spent in Call of Duty lobbies, which definitely helped me build a thick skin, because those were extremely toxic back in the day. But once I got older, I got into graphic design and taught myself how to do that through YouTube videos. I’m happy I picked it up from an early age, because I helps with stuff I do on this page now.

Do you think that helped give you an eye for aesthetics?

Yeah, I think so. My aesthetic back when I was younger was different and definitely not very tasteful, but I think it helped me develop an eye for what I think is cool, and it motivated me to use platforms like Pinterest and Tumblr to get ideas and build my own moodboards. So I was indirectly building an Artifaxing-esque moodboard, just not on Instagram yet.

Looking back now on the internet of those days, what do you think you loved or even hated about it?

It was awesome. Granted, I was younger, so I was in different spaces and wasn’t seeing as much political stuff. But back then it felt like people were more connected because it was so new. Connection has gotten so much easier – even in the last five years – through technology and social media, but in a way it’s almost pushed people further apart because we’ve become so addicted to these little supercomputers in our hands. Back then, the ability to connect and the internet was more of a tool, and things were more raw and fun. There was obviously negativity, but a lot less of it I think.

There’s an idea that once we put something on the internet, it’ll live forever. As someone who archives it, what do you think of that presumption?

I think it’s real, but I don’t think it’s as scary as people make it out to be. People always say: “You can’t post that, you have a digital footprint.” I think as long as you’re not posting insane stuff it’s not that bad. A lot of the stuff we posted when we were younger isn’t necessarily bad, it might just be cringe, and that’s the beauty of it. I love looking at old versions of myself and being able to laugh at who I was at the time. I love the idea that the internet preserves different versions of us. I do think that the internet lives forever. It’s strange because that concept has essentially become my job – I’m constantly digging things up that are sometimes over a decade old, looking through archives on Pinterest, Instagram, etc. I’m constantly scouring the internet as if it’s this big library; I’m the one all the way in the back where the books are dusty.

• Read next: Clavicular isn’t interesting, really

One thing that people say is with the rise of internet monoculture, that subcultures don’t really exist anymore. What are your thoughts on that?

I think subcultures exist and believe they always will, online and in real life. We’ve seen a lot of internet subcultures come to be in the last 10 years. Like 10 years ago, this interview wouldn’t have happened – there’s a subculture of people who care about these Instagram archive pages, which is like a new wave of blogging. But I think with the internet, it is all a bit contradictory, because is it really a subculture if everyone’s end goal is to post it and make it visible to everyone? Isn’t part of subcultures that they are meant to be inaccessible or unknown to everybody? I saw a post the other day asking, “Would you run a marathon if you couldn’t post it?” And that’s where my mind goes to – would people really partake in these subcultures if they couldn’t post it?

I think that’s the internet side of it though, but if you go to other places in the world other than just America or London, I think you’ll find so many subcultures that you would never have found on the internet because those people don’t really care to post them.

What do you think the future holds for the internet, with people fracturing into rabbit holes and diverging algorithms, and society seemingly being more divided than ever?

I see the internet being different. I think right now there’s a beautiful movement happening online where people are using platforms and speaking up for what they believe in. And then also, AI is a big conversation and I think the internet is going to be flooded with bots and AI content, and the ‘dead internet theory’ is kind of becoming truer by the day.

But I’m someone who likes to be hopeful that people in these times are going to turn to more real things. As we see more AI content, and more AI platforms, I think people will turn their necks and start looking for more little spaces like Artifaxing where you can be part of a real community, where people go to New York and have parties together and experience a night together. I think the internet’s going to change – it always happens every few years but I don’t think it needs to be this super negative thing and have hope that people will try to be on the right side of history.

How do you think AI will change our relationship with art and culture?

I think real art created by humans will always prevail, and if that means someone uses AI as an assistant it becomes subjective. Art is subjective and some people view AI art as art – I have mixed opinions about that – but some people don’t even consider digital art created on Photoshop or Adobe Illustrator to be real art, so this debate has kind of always been going on since technology came into the picture. But I think naturally, as humans, we always crave art that makes us feel something.

Isaac Muk is Huck’s digital editor. Follow him on Bluesky.

Buy your copy of Huck 82 here.

Enjoyed this article? Follow Huck on Instagram and sign up to our newsletter for more from the cutting edge of sport, music and counterculture.

Support stories like this by becoming a member of Club Huck.