PAUL FLYNN

Instagram’s Aids memorial is a towering example of social media at its best

IN PUBLIC SPEAKING , Martin Scorsese’s brilliant 2010 documentary about New York wit and intellect Fran Lebowitz, his subject makes a clever observation. At one point she is talking about how Aids wreaked havoc on her beloved city. It wasn’t, Fran says, just the deaths of the artists, famous fashion designers, dancers at the New York City Ballet or other celebrated public figures that shook the Five Boroughs to their core.

It was the great swathes of the audience that Aids depleted. Suddenly, there were fewer and fewer people to look at their creations, hear their words, wear their clothes.

I think about Lebowitz’s smart aside each time a new post pops up on Instagram from my favourite account, @the_aids_memorial (TAM). Several times a day, TAM posts a picture, or pictures, of someone who has died of an Aids-related illness. Usually, there is a compact piece about their achievements, life and work. If little is known, a square bracketed “citation needed” will appear, giving somebody who knew the person a chance to contribute thoughts. TAM is not just about the canonised figures that we recognise, such as Sylvester, Keith Haring and Arthur Russell, but also those folk who didn’t become headlines. It honours them all, forming a digital tapestry of modern saints.